Legend
by HGRomance
Summary: People in the kingdom whispered about a legend: a boy with a bow. They said he took up residence in the woods, hiding out while committing random acts of kindness, namely stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Historical AU. Robin Hood. Banners by Ro Nordmann, delete spaces: h t t p:/tinyurl . com/c9wrmor; h t t p:/tinyurl . com/ctqmv9o
1. Chapter 1

**My first fanfic. I was inspired by Robin Hood. It's based very loosely on the tale. I'm by no means an expert on the original, just wanted have fun. If that's fine with you guys, then happy reading.**

**Many thanks to my fabulous beta reader, Dustwriter!**

**Thank you to Ro Nordmann for the lovely banners. See story summary for url.  
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**Disclaimer: I do not own THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy. It belongs to Suzanne Collins. I merely want to spend more time with her characters.**

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LEGEND

_Peeta_

The cloaked figure stood amongst the crowd and watched the girl beneath the tent of his hood. She kept fumbling with the ring on her right hand—a plump emerald blossoming from a gold band, superfluous and cold as a monarch's throne. Its value was enough to feed the entire village. Everyone here knew it. And everyone within the boundaries of Panem's kingdom was hungry.

Except King Snow. And his court. And his guards.

And that girl.

His Majesty and company gathered on the castle's terrace to announce her engagement to Snow's youngest son, Seneca. The mass of peasants who'd been corralled into the courtyard to hear the news pretended to react with joy, when really they were too tired and embittered and tattered and starving to listen to the king go on and on about a wedding feast they wouldn't be invited to. Still, they did their best to cheer. The girl's radiance and the fiery orange color of her velvet gown helped with that. It boasted everyone's mood to look upon something so fair.

Her name was Lady Katniss Everdeen. She came from a city called The Seam, a place that no one had ever heard of. She wasn't royalty, but she did have a titled father. Not to mention, Seneca kept looking at her like a starving man.

It was pathetic, the figure thought.

The girl's expression reflected indifference toward her surroundings, a tightness of mind and heart that matched the tight threads of her side braid. A vain girl, indeed. A spoiled girl. She groped that ring as if she feared it would disappear.

And she was right. Because it would. Very soon.

The boy in the crowd adjusted his hood and smirked.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Katniss_

I hated this ring. I hated this dress. I hated this castle.

The jewel was heavy as a shackle on my finger. The gown clung suggestively to my arms and shoulders, the bodice cut far too low, the whole design created to parade me around like a well-bred mare. The palace loomed around me like a spectacular prison. My fiance wouldn't stop tossing me wolfish looks. My nose wrinkled from the overabundant muskiness of whatever he bathed himself in, which wafted like a mating call across the courtyard and clashed with the reek of unwashed bodies surrounding the terrace.

I never knew depression had a weight to it. I longed to be home, in the warm embrace of my bedsheets, the comfort of my father's earthy voice, the Everything of my sister, Prim. But that wasn't to be my fate.

Our city by the Seam River needed me to secure an alliance with this farce of a benevolent ruler. It was no secret how King Snow treated his people, yet he'd agreed to keep The Seam fed and protected from invasion...upon my marriage to his son, Seneca. Panem had nothing to gain from our lands or my family, as my father possessed no wealth beyond his title. The only thing of value was me, my future, my vows.

Seneca had wanted me that much.

It wasn't a great sacrifice for the king. Seneca was his third son, and therefore the prince could be less picky for his choice of wife. Unlike Marvel, the firstborn, who'd married a princess named Clove. I'd forgotten who the second son, Cato, had wed. Some blond maiden with a ridiculous name.

I wanted to vomit all over Seneca's polished boots. I wished he'd never seen me at the annual Hunger Tournament. I shouldn't have smiled at him.

And yet, I had been right to. It now gave my people hope and security. That alone was worth it. I had to do this. I had to bear the weight of this hideous ring and pretend I was fine wearing such finery in front of a group of starving faces. I had to pretend this was right and just and the natural way of things.

Several times my fingers sought out the ring while I mentally compared it to the corded bracelet on my wrist, which I kept hidden beneath my sleeve. It had no value apart from its meaning. Everyone back home wore one. To pass your Seam bracelet onto someone else was the greatest sign of respect and loyalty. Usually people traded bracelets with the person they would marry, but there was no way I was going to offer it to Seneca. The worn piece of braided leather represented my devotion in a way nothing else would. It meant so much more to me than my engagement ring.

Temptation got the better of me as I imagined tossing the emerald bauble into the throng. I went so far as to scan the audience, searching for a possible recipient.

That's when my gaze collided with the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.

A dark hood shrouded the rest of his face, but those irises flashed in my direction, confident, intense, sending my pulse into an inexplicable frenzy. He wasn't tall, but from the drape of his cloak I made out an athletic, stocky frame.

I looked away, instantly regretting the loss of him.

I glanced back.

He was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Musical inspiration: "Promentory****" by**** Trevor Jones (instrumental).**_  
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_Katniss_

Effie wouldn't stop yapping about the surplus of crystal chandeliers in King Snow's palace. Resting inside the upholstered stomach of our carriage, I leaned my profile against the wall and gazed out at the forest, using the view as a distraction and drowning out my chaperone's incessant chatter. When we first hired her, my father had argued that the woman was a flawless example of Ladyness—he had a penchant for making up his own words—and I'd do well to learn from her. The only Ladyness about Effie that I valued was her ability to talk for me. I rarely favored speech and her mouth swelled with enough dialogue for us both.

"Such a pity we weren't able to get the full advantage of grandeur. Some people don't have an eye for these things," she piped.

I sensed her giving me a pointed look. She was still bitter that I'd rejected the king's offer for us to stay one more night as his guests. We'd already been in Panem for three days. I wanted to go home.

Upon my decision, Effie had thrown a genteel fit. She struggled to hide her outrage beneath a veneer of composure, yet she'd stomped her foot twice while insisting it was bad manners to fling His Majesty's generosity out the window.

I'd been tempted to throw _her _out the window.

During our ride, she produced a deliberately mournful sigh that curled to the roof of the carriage, its echo hovering above us like a stubborn cloud. It was similar to the noise she made whenever she wasn't complimented on her style during a gathering.

I fingered my corded bracelet and closed my eyes while listening to the vehicle's wheels grinding over foliage. I loved the forest. There was nothing more welcoming than the thick tangle of bark and leaves, the scent of soil, the childish trickle of a brook as it carved through the landscape. I wished I could steal away and live in the woods forever.

I'd recently heard a tale about someone who did. I was too skeptical to believe in legends, but one in particular _had _caught my attention when I'd arrived in Panem. On my first night in the palace, during supper, female members of Snow's court gushed to me about a mysterious boy. People in the kingdom whispered about him taking residence in the woods with a band of thieves, hiding out while committing random acts of kindness, namely stealing from the rich and giving his booty to the poor. Reports had been circulating throughout the land about aristocrats being ambushed in remote locations and stripped of their finery. Followed by subsequent reports of starving families finding a pouch of gold coins or gems or game on their doorstep. The rich huffed and puffed, bloated with outrage at such accounts. To say nothing of King Snow's fury. Whenever these outlaws intercepted His Majesty's own cargo, they left his guards limping and confused.

Many claimed the boy who led this band possessed remarkable skill with a bow, that he could spear his target from impossible distances, that no one could match him in grace and speed and accuracy. Nor could they stand a chance of finding him. He and his men were said to disappear once their job was done, vanishing like a magic trick.

This had made me snicker. No one in this world possessed inhuman skills...except for maybe Effie, who never ran out of things to talk about and could certainly go on for eternity.

"He's rumored to be handsome. Uncommonly so," one of the women had gushed to me.

"And dangerous," another female purred.

The women had touched my shoulder, wine sloshing over the rims of their goblets. They blushed, though I hadn't been sure if it had to do with their description of the boy or their evident drunkenness.

In any case, the story sounded so absurd, so blatantly manufactured, that I'd considered saving it for when I saw Prim again. My sister loved legends.

Now, with my eyes shut and the gentle rocking of the carriage hypnotizing me, I tried to imagine what this enigma of a boy might look like. And a set of decadently blue eyes flashed in my head.

Just before the carriage jolted to a standstill. It happened so fast that it launched my chaperone and I forward, propelling us to the opposite side of our cabin. Effie squeaked, straightening her gold brocade cap and helping me back to my seat.

I poked my head out of the carriage. The royal guards assigned to escort us home wrestled to control their horses. The first one to succeed trotted over to me, a hulking statue made up of muscle and frequent scowls, always looking as though he'd just been told a filthy joke. His name was Brutus.

"Sorry, my lady. The animals got spooked," he said, eyes scanning the tree line.

I glanced at the sword bouncing against his hip. Apprehension gnawed at my spine. "What's happened?"

"It's best if you stay inside the carriage," he told me, ignoring my question.

I hesitated, immediately distrusting his bravado. Nothing alerted me to a problem more than a calm expression. The guard had tuned into something, a disturbance that hadn't made itself known yet, but he wasn't willing to alarm me. I pondered why men frequently thought this was the best course of action. Keeping women in the dark only endangered them further and served no purpose but to pump up their masculine egos to the point of no return.

The guards spread out, their weapons clinking against their armor. I peered at the fringes of the forest and saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. Not even the wind.

My frown deepened.

A giggle at the rear of our carriage stole my attention. I twisted around and quelled a laugh at the tongue sticking out at me. Rue, my friend and companion, had been following us in another vehicle. No one in The Seam except my father and Prim approved of Rue. I'd caused a scandal by choosing her as my lady's maid. It was an advanced position in the hierarchical worlds of servants and I'd awarded it to someone of a different skin color, someone who people believed should be scrubbing floors instead of helping me dress.

Thankfully, I maintained such good social connections within The Seam that no one ever voiced their opinions to my face.

Rue leaned out of her carriage and was presently making funny faces at me. In response, I crossed my eyes at her. At which point, she began to scrunch up her features and flex her scrawny arms to imitate Brutus.

I covered my mouth with my hand.

Then felt a pull on my skirt.

"Lady Katniss Everdeen," Effie snapped from inside our cabin. "I know what you're doing. This is no time for games."

"There are worse games to play," I teased.

"Must I repeat myself? Get back in here!"

I rolled my eyes at Rue and was about to sink into my seat when an arrow sliced through the air, skewering the side of the carriage, landing right beside my finger. Beside my engagement ring. As if the arrow had marked its target.

I yanked my hand back in shock.

Before I could register what was going on, Brutus started roaring orders. The guards pivoted in different directions. The horses whinnied and reared back, including the one pulling our carriage, sending us jostling forward and stopping again. The force threw me halfway out the window, setting my teeth to rattle. Shouts and metal and whistles radiated from all around me. Whipping my head around, my eyes popped wide open as three cloaked men launched themselves from the woods and began to attack.

All except one.

I spotted him above us, perched on high ground, a lithe bow poised in his hands, arrow aimed at Brutus. But then his head turned, just slightly, perhaps sensing that I'd caught him. He shifted his bow, weapon now pointed at me. I wanted to move, but a hint of a smile appeared beneath his hood as if to say, _Try it_.

He wouldn't miss. I dangled out of the carriage window, frozen, waiting for the inevitable. My body toppled back inside under the force of Effie's panicked tug.

"What, what, what," she shrieked.

It took me a moment to process. _He didn't shoot me. He didn't shoot me._

"I don't know," I shouted. "It's—"

"It's the legend. That boy with the bow. He's here to kill us. He's here to—"

I slapped her. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fainted.

Not having time to feel guilty for striking Effie, for it had done the trick of sedating her, I ripped the ring off my finger. Relief diluted my terror, gratitude for the excuse to rid myself of this trinket. It was the only thing of value that I had with me. I still didn't believe the legend had come to haunt us, but I didn't doubt the ring was what these bandits sought.

That's when a frail scream—Rue—pierced my ears.

"No!" I trilled.

I dropped the ring into the bodice of my dress and tore out of the carriage, catapulting toward the sound. A tall figure had Rue pinned against the wagon. I rammed myself between them, holding up my hands.

"Stop!" I gasped. "I know what you want."

"Oh, I doubt that," the fellow mocked, gray eyes twinkling. He was young. My age.

I fumbled for the jewel, intending to give it to him and demand he leave us alone, but he lunged for me.

I rammed my knee between his legs, causing him to keel over and howl. "Son of a bi—"

My leg swung out and knocked him upside the head, so instinctively that I stunned myself for a second. He hit the floor, unconscious. I cast an anxious glance at the battle going on between the guards and bandits. They didn't want my entourage. They wanted my ring. I would give it to them, but first...

"Go," I said to Rue, knowing she had skill with a horse.

"Katniss, no," she sobbed, her face coated in tears.

"Take Effie and make haste. Get home and tell—"

"Not without you. I can't—"

"Yes, you can." I grabbed her face and kissed her cheek and shoved her in the direction of my carriage where Effie still lay.

Without giving Rue a chance to object, I headed toward the fray, but then stopped short. The boy with the bow stormed down the hill, halted at the lip of the forest, and in one swift motion whipped two arrows from the pack hanging from his shoulder. Barely having time to aim, he let them fly, knocking swords from the hands of two different warriors.

It was enough to immobilize me. My dazed mind wondered if everything I'd heard about this so-called legend was true and whether I was staring right at that legend. He would take out my protectors in a matter of minutes, with or without his band of thieves. I had to distract him. I had to give him what he wanted, but I also I had to get him away from the apex of the battle.

I darted closer to him and waved my arms. "Over here!"

The instant his body swerved in my direction, my blood chilled. His attention was a fist to the chest, capsizing me and wiping me of breath. This without even seeing his whole face.

Again, that taunting smile of his.

I produced the ring and wiggled it, knowing he could easily shoot it from my fingers...or fire at me. Remembering his last opportunity to strike me down—an opportunity he didn't take—I trained my gaze on him, silently communicating my next move, as if saying, _Now you try it._

His smile died.

I ran.

My lungs blazed as I plowed into the forest, crashing through branches so sharp they cut my neck. Trying to curb my ragged, high-pitched gasps, I dropped the jewel back into the bodice of my gown. I felt him pursuing me, felt his movements like I felt my own pulse. I craned my head over my shoulder but saw no one, then turned back around.

And smacked into a tree trunk. White spots filled my vision and my head swelled with pain. A thin noise pierced the air. I sprinted forward, desperate to flee, but the neckline of my cape tightened across my neck. Twisting, I found an arrow lodged into the trunk, securing the hood of my cape against the bark. Only a hair's width to the left and the weapon could have breached my skull.

Hands shaking, I freed myself from the garment and lurched across the grass.

He tackled me from behind, rocketing us both to the ground where he gripped my forearms and stamped them into the dirt, his body heaving against mine. I lay face first, questions spinning through my mind. What if this boy wanted more than the ring? What if he tried to defile me?

A jagged rock lay a few inches from my hand. My knuckles curled.

"Don't even think about it," he warned, his breath moist against my ear, his voice youthful and possessing a tendency to crack on certain words.

I seized the rock anyway, but he was too fast, flipping me around and landing directly between my thighs as he restrained my wrists above my head. Our chests beat against one another. A guttural sound escaped me, fading into a squeak when the hood fell off his head.

His blond hair glinted in the sun, moist from sweat and curling beneath his ear. An angular square jaw. A pert nose, straight as one of his arrows. An intoxicatingly boyish face. And a pair of blue eyes squinting at me like two misplaced stars.

Eyes that I'd seen before.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you so much for all your kind and enthusiastic comments!**

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_Peeta_

She recognized him. That was his first thought. Her face was alive with fear, yet she clenched her teeth to keep her lips from trembling.

His second thought was how foolishly brave she'd acted—it was clear now. She'd bargained her freedom, used herself to distract him so her female companion could get away and her guards could stand a fighting chance in combat.

Peeta Mellark was pissed.

Nothing had gone according to plan. It usually didn't. But somehow, his band always managed to succeed through instinct and swiftness. Their ability to play dirty made them oddly efficient.

Like now.

The fireball of a female writhed beneath him, refusing to give up even though she had nothing on his strength. She just sort of flopped around, arms and legs going everywhere, and he considered whether he should wait her out until she got tired or do something more drastic.

She spit at him.

Drastic it was.

He dug his hips into the juncture of her thighs and she stiffened. She hadn't expected that. The same way Gale probably hadn't expected the girl's knee to meet his groin—Peeta had seen the whole thing and would deal with Gale later.

"Where is it?" he asked.

She shook her head. Not a very talkative one.

Peeta tilted his head, studying her for a moment, watching her face suffuse with color, pink bursting from her cheeks. He lowered his voice another notch. "Where. Is. It?"

"It's yours if you let me go."

He laughed, by way of answering. Then he quirked an eyebrow. "Somewhere private, I'd wager."

His hand drifted down her ribcage, getting dangerously close to her navel, further down still...she squirmed, her hips bucking upward and causing him to jerk in surprise. It had been a reflex. She hadn't intended it. She'd been trying to fend off his hand. But his anatomy responded all the same.

This pissed Peeta off even more. His hand continued its descent.

"Okayokayokay," she pleaded. "It's up here." Her eyes flitted toward her bodice to indicate the ring's location, and she turned away, biting her lip, her embarrassment evident.

Peeta squinted at her. Carefully, slowly, he reached into the front of her gown, feeling her heartbeat quicken, beads of perspiration forming over the downy skin between her breasts. His fingers wrapped around a cold surface. He pulled out the ring.

They watched it glint between them.

"I won't say anything."

Her scratchy voice snapped him out of his trance.

"You can let me go—"

He unsheathed a knife and pressed it to the hollow beneath her throat.

"I'm sorry, Lady Everdeen, but I cannot," Peeta answered, then used his free hand to dig through the pack strapped across his chest. Pulling out strips of cloth, he proceeded to tie her wrists, and gag and blindfold her, making quick work of it. He hauled her to her feet, chuckled when she tried her signature knee trick with him, dodged her efforts, and swung her over his shoulder, carrying her across the forest as she kicked and shrieked.

By the time he reached his group, the girl had lost momentum and hung there like a hundred-pound sack of flour. She'd probably exerted herself to the point of unconsciousness.

Gale, Finnick, and Thresh waited by their usual rendezvous point with the horses. Finnick and Thresh bagged weapons they must have pilfered from the guards. Gale kicked the ground and stewed. The lump on his head stuck out and he was walking funny. He was going to have a hell of a time riding his horse back to camp.

Peeta considered that punishment enough for his friends' lapse in focus. Instead of doing what he was supposed to and heading straight for Lady Katniss Everdeen, Gale had gotten jumped by that tiny, dark-skinned sprite and had decided to intimidate the girl. Then the Everdeen maiden had jumped in to save her companion and Gale had gotten double blows to the codpiece and temple.

Out of everyone in their criminal group, Gale was the most reckless and temperamental, always acting on impulse. But he'd been the first friend Peeta had ever made on the road, so he couldn't stay mad at him for long.

Peeta wasn't surprised to see his band all in one piece. They could handle their own without the benefit of his arrows, though they preferred not to. His aim was their secret weapon. They informed him that, thankfully, they'd overtaken the royal guards without any casualties.

Their rule was never to kill unless absolutely necessary.

But dammit, the girl's actions had increased that threat that today. Someone could have ended up dead because she'd lead him astray. No mistaking, the guards _had _outnumbered them greatly.

Finnick tossed an apple at Peeta, which he caught with one hand.

"Looks like you made a pretty friend," Finnick cooed, eyeing the landscape of curves dangling from Peeta's shoulder.

"What do we need her for?" Gale demanded. "You got the ring, right?"

Thresh read Peeta's face and answered for him. "She belongs to Seneca."

"She's a bargaining chip," Peeta clarified.

"Can she ride with me?" Finnick asked, flashing his teeth and mounting his horse. "I'd love to feel her bounce."

Peeta bit into the apple, chewed, and swallowed. He wasn't in the mood to joke. He was in the mood to plan. The people of Panem were denied the basics of survival, and he stole it for them at every opportunity, but thinking on it...the ring's value was nothing compared to the body balanced on his frame. When he first saw Lady Everdeen and her jewel in the courtyard, he hadn't thought to set his standards higher, to up the stakes. Now, he could.

He would use every bit of this pampered and privileged girl to do it.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Katniss_

I awoke with a sore bottom. Something massive and alive pounded beneath me. The furious, rhythmic breathing that could only belong to an animal pelted my ears. Recognizable forest sounds—the crumpling and quivering of leaves—floated through my senses. Feeling the sun on my face, I bolted upright and my back collided with a muscled torso.

Then I remembered.

Peeta Mellark. The boy with the bow.

He'd kidnapped me. The scent of horse flesh and male flesh and sandalwood and, peculiarly, cinnamon wafted through my nose. A pair of arms draped loosely across my lap, holding me in place. I was on his horse. I was in his arms. I was his prisoner.

He'd had his hands down my dress.

I wiggled as far from him as I could get and heard a mean-spirited snicker.

"You're awake," he said, his breath stroking the back of my neck, my skin betraying me by sprouting goose bumps.

I pressed my lips together.

"You will talk to me, eventually," he said. "Or I'll use you for target practice. I never miss."

"Arrogance is an affront to human decency," I said.

"Big words are an affront to human intellect."

It angered me that he'd gotten me to speak in the first place. My silence could be the only weapon I had, though I didn't doubt his promise to use more violent methods to get whatever he wanted from me.

"If you never miss, there's no need to practice," I muttered.

"That's true. But I'll say it again, anyway. I never miss," he repeated.

"And if you do, I have something sharp and straight that never misses its target, either," a suave voice said from somewhere to the right. "Bet that would be more effective on her."

I heard and felt Peeta Mellark whip the reigns, sending us galloping ahead, outrunning that smooth intonation and the masculine laughter that followed. We rode in silence for so long that it startled me when we stopped, as if I'd forgotten what it was like to be still.

Peeta jumped off the horse and pulled me down, then seized my arm and dragged me with him. He sat me against what I assumed was a tree trunk, based on its rough texture, then bound my upper body to it, tight enough to breathe but not move. The stomping of hooves signaled that the rest of his band had reached us and his companions were dismounting.

Whispers.

I shifted, attempting to beat down the panic worming its way through my blood. What would they do to me?

Out of nowhere, the blindfold was removed. I blinked and focused on those steely blue eyes. Peeta Mellark was kneeling in front of me, holding out a piece of bread. My mouth watered. I hadn't eaten breakfast. The morning's official engagement announcement had left me without an appetite.

My head leaned forward to bite the bread, but he withdrew it at the last second.

"We're going to play a game," he said. "I'm going to ask a question and if you answer, you can have a taste. I baked it myself."

I glared at him. Boys didn't bake.

I took my time agreeing to his terms, using it to inspect my surroundings. It was a camp. Wide tents were set around a fire pit. Pots and pans hung from strings tied to a tree branch and hovered above a crude, makeshift oven. Target markers were painted onto other random trunks. A stringed instrument that I identified as a lute—probably stolen—rested by the pit.

The place was surprisingly cozy. And remote.

We'd traveled deep into the woods.

A boy with skin as dark as Rue's planted himself by the pit and began grinding something into a mortar. A striking young man with reddish hair and the facial features of a mythological deity winked at me as he passed.

The one I'd defended Rue against fumed, not knowing what to do with himself. "Where's Jo?" he asked, looking around.

"Probably working off her anger," the redhead said.

Her? Who was _her_?

"Aren't you going to introduce us first, Peet?" the redhead insisted.

Peeta pointed out each boy and rattled off their names. Finnick. Gale. Thresh.

"And I'm—" he began.

"Peeta Mellark," I said. "An outlaw, and a thief, and now my captor."

The effect of his smile took me so off guard. The was no other way to put it: It was adorable. And completely disproportionate to his reputation as a dangerous criminal.

"Ready to play?" he asked.

I nodded reluctantly. I was too hungry and too kidnapped to refuse.

"Why Seneca Crane?"

I gaped. I hadn't anticipated that question. "Mr. Mellark—"

"Peeta," he corrected.

"Mr. Mellark—"

"Peeta."

"Very well, _Peter_," I said, deliberately mispronouncing his name, "I'm not sure what you want to know."

"It's Peeta," he said. "Putting aside the question of taste in general, I want to know why, in the name of all that's rational and sane, you'd choose that louse. Did I make myself clear enough for you?"

"You have a refined tongue for a ruffian," I remarked, adding a dash of haughtiness to my words.

"Poverty doesn't make us simpletons, my lady. My father taught me to read. I've taught me friends as much as I could, but don't worry. Our differences in rank will be more obvious once you see us eat with our hands. Are you going to answer my question?"

"I _have_ to marry him. Panem will give The Seam food and protection if I do. We have scarce resources, and Seneca likes me, and I'm of age..."

Peeta frowned. What had he thought? That I'd made this match for self-advancement? For wealth and power?

Well, of course he did. That's what everyone thought.

My response seemed to have caused a rift in his interrogation because he struggled to come up with another question.

He didn't have to. Just then, a willowy girl with spiky hair—_boy's_ hair—marched into the camp and flung an axe across the space. It landed right between Gale's legs, sending him falling off the log where he'd stationed himself. The one called Finnick burst into laughter. The one called Thresh shook his head.

"You left without me _again_," she hissed.

Peeta nodded his head toward the girl, not taking his eyes off me. "And that's Johanna."

Gale rose, wiping dirt from his pants. "Why do you always take this stuff out on me?"

"Answer me!"

"It was Peet's call. You're not ready for fighting yet. We all agreed with him."

"Not ready? You see where my axe landed? I didn't miss, you idiot!"

Gale grunted and stalked off. Johanna gave all of us a onceover, pausing to grimace at me. "Who's she?"

"A hostage," Finnick beamed.

Johanna didn't bother to respond to that. She pointed at Peeta. "You went without me. You left while I was asleep. I hate you."

"I know," he sighed.

She took off after Gale.

Peeta held out the bread, waiting patiently while I ripped off chunks with my teeth, not caring how savage I looked doing it. He offered me water from a canteen and watched droplets leak from the corners of my mouth, eyes lingering there before snapping up to meet mine.

I gulped.

Without a word, he straightened and left, heading toward wherever Johanna and Gale had gone. Finnick and Thresh followed him as if by unspoken rule.

My head fell against the tree. Being face to face with that boy was exhausting. I imagined he and his band were about to have some sort of meeting about what to do with me. Dread coursed through my chest. I knew that Peeta already had something in mind. It wasn't hard to guess what. My life had been bargained once already, so I knew the signs. Peeta wanted to sell me back to Snow and Seneca, to negotiate my freedom at the right price. A price high enough to feed the whole of Panem.

I couldn't blame him for that.

kpkpkpkpkp

By nightfall, I'd lost all feeling in my body from being secured to the tree. Peeta and his band of rebels gathered around the fire. The flames licked the air and flickered off his chiseled jaw, illuminating the dips and arcs of his face as he stared at the pit. Since we last spoke, he hadn't glanced at me once.

Gale strummed that lute I'd seen earlier. I recognized the tune.

When he finished playing, he stood and crossed over to me, offering me a piece of meat they'd been roasting, evidently taking over his boss's job. "Hope you like squirrel," he said.

It was a rarity to find someone with the same gray eyes and olive skin as my own. In Panem, at least. How had I not noticed this before?

'"You're from The Seam," I ventured.

Guilt creased his features. He didn't deny it. He hadn't reacted when I'd mentioned earlier that I was from there, too. He must have given his corded Seam bracelet to someone because I didn't see him wearing one.

He nodded. "I am. Now, eat."

I accepted the squirrel, letting him feed me, too hungry to savor the actual taste. "What are you doing here?" I asked after my last bite.

"Long story," he said. "I got caught poaching. I was banished."

"That was _you_?" I reeled.

I knew the story, but I'd never met him. His parents had died in some sort of accident and he'd had to fend for himself. That had been almost a year ago. My father, being a member of the aristocracy, had jurisdiction over such rules. He understood why people in The Seam poached, but although my father hated the system, he believed in duty and upholding the law. Thus, our sheriff, Mr. Haymitch Abernathy, only caught a few people to maintain the example.

Gale must have been one of them.

"I know that song you were playing. The valley song," I said, changing the subject and humming the melody.

Gale's face lit up. "Yes, that's it. You know it. And you have the voice for it."

"I'm not as good as Greasy Sae's husband. He sings it every year at the Spring Festival."

"I remember them," he said. "The Saes. How are they?"

"Bickering as usual."

He melted into a tentative smile. I matched his grin with one of my own.

A thud made us jump. Peeta had thrust a log into the fire, eyes trained on us. He'd witnessed our bonding session and hadn't enjoyed it. He picked up his bow and pack of arrows and stalked over to us, looking for something to say.

I waited.

"Are your bindings comfortable?" he asked.

For some reason, I lied and said they were. He nodded and retreated toward his tent.

Finnick shook his head, picking up another piece of squirrel. "Wow, Peet. You really know how to charm a lady. It explains your track record."

Peeta spun around and impaled Finnick's meat with an arrow. In the dark. Again with no time to aim.

Finnick reflexively dropped his food. "I really hate it when you do that."

Making no effort to conceal the nerve his friend had hit, Peeta scowled and disappeared into his tent. The minute he did, Johanna threw a bone at Finnick. "What's wrong with you? Are you that brainless?"

"I..." Finnick sighed, seeming to realize he'd crossed a line. "I didn't think."

Gale went back to playing the lute to cover up the silence that followed, leaving me to ponder what all that had been about.

kpkpkpkpkp

Something tugged me from my slumber. My lids fluttered open and I gasped, afraid I was dreaming.

"Rue!" I pressed my head into her shoulder when she hugged me. "Oh my God, Rue."

She pulled back and put a finger to her lips, pointing at the tents. It was the middle of the night and everyone was asleep.

"Where are you doing here?" I said as she undid my restraints.

She freed me and I cried out in relief, rubbing my wrists and shoulders, standing to stretch. We hustled a short distance from the camp where Rue stopped me.

"I followed you," she admitted.

"What?" I seethed.

"I couldn't leave you, Katniss. Brutus got away and took Effie. I hid in the trees so he wouldn't see me, then I followed Mellark's band of not-so-merry boys, and then I saw Mellark carrying you, and I tailed you here. When I saw them tie you up, I got worried they'd hurt you, but I couldn't fight them by myself. I went back to Snow's palace to get help."

I nodded. "So where the reinforcements?"

My friend wavered.

"Rue?" I prodded.

"They're not coming."

_"What?"_

"I'm sorry, Katniss. I went there and told Snow I knew where Mellark's camp was. I said that he was real, not just some legend. And the king does want to save you, but...he had...another idea."

"Idea?" I echoed in disbelief. "This is his chance to catch the notorious legend. You have the location to his camp."

"He wants more than that. He wants to catch Mellark in the palace, in front of everyone. He wants to make an example out of him. He wants it to be a...a show."

My heart sank. "And he wants me to bring Mellark there."

Rue nodded, checking over my shoulder to make sure we were still safe. "He wants you to get close to them, earn their trust if you can. You're to tell them that a large import shipment of riches is arriving in a week's time. Make up whatever you want. Gold. Jewels. Relics. Anything that sounds impossible to refuse. Tell them you know the layout of the castle. Tell them you can get them in. It wouldn't be a lie."

"A trap," I said.

Rue smiled sadly at me.

"I can't deceive people—"

"It's the only way, Katniss. You may be his son's fiance, but he wants to catch Mellark in a public way more than he wants to rescue you for Seneca. If we run now, the king's withdrawing the betrothal contract and The Seam will..."

I didn't need her to finish. The Seam would lose the food and protection my marriage would have bought it. My family, my friends and neighbors, they would all starve and continue to live in the same deprivation that had been crippling them for years.

Snow might even make an enemy of us. This thought made my gut twist and haunted me to no end. It scared me more than anything ever had. I owed it to my home to do this, but so many doubts and terrors clamored inside, especially the fear that I wasn't up to the task. There was nothing spectacular about me. I wasn't good with speeches. I wasn't a leader like Peeta Mellark. Most of the time, I had trouble convincing myself I knew what I was doing. And so it was unfathomable that I could convince strangers, a band of outlaws no less, to welcome me into their lives. I wasn't that good. Why didn't Snow see this?

Why did Rue look at me like I'd know precisely what to do? That I would overcome this?

"Katniss, are you listening?"

Whatever she had been saying, no, I hadn't been listening. I'd been too busy tallying the odds. They weren't in my favor.

"I'll do it," I said numbly.

My friend sighed in both relief and turmoil. She smoothed her fingers over my braid. "I can come here every day and make sure—"

"No. It's too risky," I lectured. "You won't be hurt because of me."

We grasped each other in a tight hug, and I thought of every time we snuck into one another's room to whisper and laugh until dawn, every time we shared a private joke, every time Rue told me I was strong even though I didn't believe her. I'd never had a more unconditional friend. I wanted nothing but to keep her by my side. She gave me peace. Seeing her batch of crooked teeth whenever she smiled reminded me why my life needed to be secondary. Why every sacrifice I made was worth it.

She had to leave as soon as possible before I clung to her permanently. Or began to cry.

"Should I tie you back up?" she whimpered.

"No. Leave me like this," I said. If I had to get Peeta and his band to trust me, I needed to start right away. But there was one pressing question coiling inside me like a spring.

"What if I fail?" I asked.

"I don't know," Rue whispered. "Snow didn't mention that."

Because he wasn't expecting me to fail. It was a silent message from the king to me: Failure was out of the question.


	4. Chapter 4

_Peeta_

The last thing he expected when he woke up that morning was to find Lady Everdeen upright and pointing his own bow and arrow at him. He halted in his tracks just outside his tent. He'd been intending to bathe by the lake before relieving Thresh from the morning watch along the main road—everyone rotated this duty, not so much to look out for danger, but to spot wagons carting potential swagger.

But there was the girl, weapon quaking in her hands. Her stance and grip were horrible.

If he wasn't worried about her intentions, he might have found this moment, this girl, incredible. She wasn't very big. Or particularly pretty. But it took more than beauty to draw Peeta. Her scowl, on the other hand, he liked very much. That and her daring, her selflessness, which he hadn't expected when he first laid eyes on her. Those things made her stunning.

Self-revulsion churned through him for thinking this way. For allowing her to puncture his senses, proving that he hadn't learned a thing from the last time he'd gotten close to a girl. He couldn't afford to let his guard down like that again. Definitely not now with an arrow clumsily pointed at him. If this maiden had the gall to release it, she would turn out a very messy shot and injure herself in the process.

How in the hell had she gotten out of the binding?

He still felt guilty about leaving her there all night, even though he had no reason to feel thus. He wasn't sure he believed her story about being forced to marry Seneca Crane. For all Peeta knew, she was madly in love with the moron. For all Peeta knew, Lady Everdeen was loyal to Snow.

Guess he was about to find out.

Again: How in the _hell _had she gotten out of the binding?

"Impressive," he said. "But can you shoot?"

"From this distance I'm sure I can hit _something _important."

The corners of his mouth lifted. He could, he _would_, take her down easy. Bow or no bow. He was faster than she gave him credit for.

All at once, she dropped the weapon.

Peeta blinked, not knowing what to make of that.

"What the..." Finnick said behind him.

Gale and Johanna came out of their tents at the same time, both rendered speechless. Johanna moved toward Lady Everdeen, but Peeta shook his head in warning and Gale held her back.

"If you run, I'll catch you," Peeta told their prisoner.

That didn't impress her. "I could have run hours ago, but I didn't."

"Whyyyy?" he asked, drawing out the question.

She took a deep breath, her upper body rising and falling and doing magnificent things to neckline of her dress. "I want to join your group."

Johanna was the first to react. She laughed. Loud and obnoxious as usual.

Gale clamped a hand over her mouth and she went nuts. She hated being restrained as much as he did. In that regard, they were very much alike.

Peeta retrieved his weapons, watching the girl cautiously as he bent down and straightened again. There was no way in Hades their band would permit another person into their circle, particularly one with an upbringing above and beyond their own. She was of noble blood. She was fooling herself.

She was hiding something from them.

Based on the creases in Gale and Johanna's faces, they'd drawn the same conclusion.

Apparently, history was repeating itself by thrusting yet another female into Peeta's path, hoping to massage his trust into submission until the right moment when the girl could get her talons into him...into their group.

No, he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. He wasn't stupid. Maybe this girl was masterminding a scheme to lure them into Snow's grasp. How she was planning to do this without outside help was up for debate. But being Seneca's property, and the future daughter-in-law of a diabolical man like the king, Peeta resolved not to underestimate her.

"Explain," he said, fully intending to reject her but curious to know what excuse she'd come up with.

Lady Everdeen seemed discouraged but pushed ahead. "There's a shipment arriving in a week to the palace. It's worth enough to support every soul in Panem for a year, and then some..."

Peeta wanted to strangle her on the spot. Of all sources of manipulation, she was going to use starving people. She was going to target their greatest vulnerability as a means to ensnare his band. There was no doubt now. She had to have been lying about her own neighbors in The Seam, the ones she'd claimed to be helping by marrying Seneca. She wouldn't formulate this sort of plan if it were a truly sensitive subject for her, if her people were really going through the same turmoil as the villagers of Panem.

"This is a joke?" he asked.

Lady Everdeen frowned. "You won't be able to intercept the shipment on the road. It's…being transported underground. I don't know where the passage starts, but I know where in the palace it ends. I know how the guards operate. I know how Snow operates. I know the process, where the shipment will be stashed, the castle's weak spots. My friend, Rue, can help if we let her know—"

"Why?"

"Pardon?"

"Why would you help us?" Peeta asked.

Gale roared, his hand launching from Johanna's mouth and fisting in pain. She'd bitten him and wasted no time adding to the question. "He means, what's in it for you, you little—"

"I don't want to be married to Seneca," Lady Everdeen said simply. "I never did. This will get me out of it. As long as I get to use part of the wealth for The Seam. That's the deal."

"So you're not asking us to kill the prince for you?" Johanna flared.

Lady Everdeen balked. "I'm—I'm not a murderer."

"Snow might retaliate against your family for your disloyalty," Peeta pointed out.

"Yes, he would. _If _he knew I was working with you. I can keep my face hidden the way you do when we cross into the castle, you can send him a message that you killed me. He'll want nothing to do with The Seam after that. He won't even know its people have come into riches. I can let my family in on the truth later, once it's safe, but I'll have to stay away from them after that."

"And that would be worth it?"

She swallowed. "If it keeps them fed and me free, then yes."

This made so much sense that it actually gave Peeta pause. For one idiotic moment, he suspected she might be telling the truth. Who would want to be married to Seneca? The prince was a pig widely rumored to have appetites that leaned toward masochistic. He was just as cruel as his father, only his cruelty existed inside a much younger, stronger, more energetic body.

Still, lie or no lie, this wasn't the way Peeta and his band worked. Trust wasn't handed out merely because the motivation was plausible.

"What's in this shipment?" Finnick asked.

Peeta shot him a look, knowing Finnick was humoring the girl.

She hesitated. "A pendant that will make my ring look like a pebble."

Fact or falsehood? Real or not real?

"And gold," she continued. "But you'll have to disperse the riches slowly over time, not all at once or Snow will notice the villagers living beyond their means."

Peeta was insulted. This was what they always did, anyway. He didn't need this girl telling him how to take care of his own people.

"You must think we're stupid," he said finally.

She flinched. He enjoyed watching her flinch. Matter of fact, he enjoyed her discomfort far too much.

"I do if you think your alternative is better," she dared. "You were planning to pawn my life for a bounty from Snow, right?"

Now it was Peeta's turn to flinch.

She scoffed. "It's a lost cause. Snow may coddle his son, but if you've been paying any attention you'd know the king is not _that_ sentimental. Not when saving me would mean he'd have to cave under the demands of Peeta Mellark. He wouldn't tuck his tail between his legs so publicly, especially to Panem's most notorious criminal. He'd just as soon let you kill me."

He clenched his teeth. She was right.

"I guess we'll have to kill you, then," Johanna sang.

"Or trust me," Lady Everdeen said.

Peeta pretended to give it some thought, then said, "No."

A tidal wave of emotions flitted across her face before she settled on one that seemed to cause her pain, and a flash of something else he couldn't identify. She lifted her sleeve and unwound a plain corded bracelet from her wrist, taking her time as if this action required ceremony. She stared at the bracelet and then stepped toward Gale and held it out to him.

Gale's brows pinched as he gazed at her in awe. A silent communication—an understanding—stirred between them that Peeta had no chance of translating.

"Give this to him," she said to Gale.

Eons went by before he turned to Peeta, wearing an expression the band's leader knew so well: approval. Gale dropped the bracelet in Peeta's palm and said, "She's telling the truth."

"A bracelet?" Johanna demanded. "Oh, how reassuring. Now, we don't have anything to worry about."

Lady Everdeen looked away while Peeta thumbed the braided leather, so light in his hand. Rough and delicate at the same time. This bracelet meant something to her, something only a person from The Seam could understand.

Gale explained its value, how people from his region were raised to give all of themselves through these bracelets, to profess their absolute devotion. Handing them over was like handing over a piece of your own skin, your faith, your word, your promise, your character. It wasn't given lightly.

It wasn't enough to change Peeta's mind, but it was enough to stop him from ending the conversation. He was about to ask Finnick to tie her up again while they convened as a group, but then a familiar whistling tune road the current to their camp, carried to them by the mocking birds nesting in the trees. It was their signal. It was a message from Thresh.

He'd spotted a carriage worth robbing.

Gale and Finnick and Johanna grabbed their weapons and glanced between Peeta and Lady Everdeen, waiting for his instruction. To Johanna's outrage, he swiped her ax and tossed it to the ground, ordered her to watch their prisoner, then took off with the two boys, Johanna's curses trailing behind them.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Katniss_

Johanna grabbed me to tie me back up, but after two steps, once I was sure she wasn't expecting it, I used a move little Rue once taught me. I snaked my leg around hers and brought us both tumbling to the ground, with me landing on top of her. Taking advantage of her momentary shock, I grabbed her ax and pressed it against her neck.

Her face boiled with rage. "I knew it," she squawked. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew—"

"Let's follow them," I said.

She blinked. "Huh?"

"We're going after them." I stood and motioned with the ax for her to get up. "Show me the way or I'll...I'll cut you."

"You'll have to cut me, then."

I admired her loyalty.

"I could do that, and then take off, and lead Snow back here to your friends. You may have blindfolded me, but there are other ways of marking the woods."

She paled.

"Which is it?" I said.

"Why do you want to follow them?"

"Apparently, I'll have to prove myself to you lot. I can't do that tied to a tree. Of course, I got free once before. I can do it again," I bluffed.

I hated doing this to her, but unfortunately I didn't have time to ease into their group. I had only a week. I needed to gain their trust fast. Helping them in any way I could while ambushing another transport seemed like a good way. I hoped I was right. I wasn't accustomed to relying purely on instinct.

From the way Johanna looked at me, I could tell she was battling with herself. She could fight me for the ax, but my sneaky ways must have convinced her not to misjudge my abilities.

I had none, but she didn't know that.

Grunting, she got up and dusted herself off and stormed ahead of me while I continued to poke her with my far-too-heavy weapon. She mounted her horse and helped me up behind her.

"Remember," I said, gripping the ax. "If you knock me off this animal, I will find my way to the palace and I'll memorize every tree branch on the way. I'm fluent in the forest, too. Back in The Seam, it's my happy place."

I sensed Johanna rolling her eyes as she dug her heels into the horse and sent it flying.

kpkpkpkpkp

We reached the group just in time to see Peeta shoot the reigns out of the coach driver's hands. Finnick, Gale, and Thresh unleashed on the guards. Judging from the model of the vehicle, I divined the travelers to be members of the aristocracy.

Johanna hid in the bushes, her anger at me shifting to eagerness. I'd counted on that. By coming here, forcing her into the forefront of the action, I'd tapped into her long-awaited desire to finally play a part. She wore the same expression Prim did whenever she was about to sink her teeth into a piece of cake...which didn't happen often.

Wordlessly, I handed Johanna her ax. She took it without thinking and glared at me. "Those were empty threats back there, weren't they?"

"I told you I wanted to help. Your ax is quite heavy, by the way."

She smirked. "I still don't trust you."

"Understood. But we can't leave now."

A battle cry caught our attention. Who knew such a sound could erupt from Thresh's mouth? He dove into a sword fight with one of the guards while Finnick apprehended a rotund, bewigged, and bejeweled man inside the coach, stripping him of his gems.

Johanna let out a screech as another guard swung his weapon in the air, ready to slash Gale across the back unbeknownst to him. Before either of us could react, Peeta was there.

It happened in slow motion for me. He galloped ahead and bounded over a fallen log, agile as a cat, lifting his bow and shooting while still in the air. The arrow sailed straight through a tunnel of arms and weapons.

The guard went down before Peeta's feet hit the ground.

I expelled a breath I hadn't known I was holding. An amazing spectacle considering he was the shortest male in the throng.

Johanna crashed into the scene, hurrying toward Gale, ramming the butt of her ax into an assailant's stomach on her way, then spinning around and taking out another man about to pummel Thresh. Her speed and artistry were something fierce to behold.

I had no plan, but if I was going to be of any use I needed to act now. I focused on Finnick searching the interior of the coach for booty while the fat aristocrat quivered in his seat, hands bound. Finnick wasn't looking in the right place. Some carriages were equipped with secret built-in compartments to hide riches. Our carriage hadn't had one, but I had seen them before. I ran toward the vehicle, hoping to come to Finnick's aid.

Peeta choose that precise moment to knock a warrior unconscious and then whip around, his blue eyes locking onto mine and narrowing, paralyzing me on the spot.

We stared at each other.

Was he furious? Baffled?

Did I care?

Movement to his left caught my attention—a sword raising, the blade flashing like an angry face, and I envisioned it carving through him, his blood seeping into the soil, creating a Peetaless world.

My legs cut across the space, sprinting so fast I could have been one of his arrows. I registered nothing but the shield teetering on the chest of the limp warrior at Peeta's feet.

I grabbed the shield. Shoving Peeta out of my way, I swung the barrier upward and squeezed my eyes shut. The sword collided against the safeguard, the impact pounding me into the ground. Something sharp tore through my arm, causing a monstrous sound to rip from my lungs. The earth split and lost all shape and dissolved beneath me.

kpkpkpkpkp

The first thing I heard was Johanna and Gale barking at each other.

"He told you to watch her!"

"Jesus. She had an ax pointed at my neck. What the hell was I supposed to do?"

"You didn't have to get in the way. I was doing fine without you!"

"If I hadn't been there to rib that guard, you and your tall tanned ass would be fastened to the road right now."

"My _what _would be _where_?"

"It was a clean raid!"

"Define _clean_!"

"The only man who died was about to kill you. We got the goods, didn't we? We got out of there before they knew what hit them, but nooooooo. No thanks to us, right? We did you boys a favor. Hell, I hate the girl, but even she saw that sword coming before Peeta did. He'd be missing a head right now because he wasn't paying attention!"

"Only because she distracted him!"

"Since when does Peeta Mellark get distracted, numskull?"

"Listen, halfwit—"

"Half_what_?"

A sharp whistling stopped them, followed by Finnick's voice. "I do believe our lady is waking up."

The camp came into focus, followed by a bunch of gaping faces, all highlighted by the midday sun filtering through the forest. They'd tucked me into a pallet of blankets beside the unlit fire pit.

My gaze skipped over to the figure leaning against a tree. Peeta tensed, arrested in the act of studying me, his expression admiring and confused and...concerned.

I rolled over and groaned, clutching my arm, which was wrapped in cloth and spotted with blood.

Peeta crouched down next to me. "How's the wound?"

"You tell me," I gulped.

He almost grinned, and I found myself straining toward the very possibility of that grin.

Until he leaned back. "You blocked most of that sword."

"Most of it?"

"Most of it," he confirmed, then jerked his chin toward Thresh, who sat across from us cutting up leaves. "Thresh gave you a salve for infection. It stopped the bleeding, too."

I thought of yesterday, when I'd noticed the quiet young man grinding something into a mortar. Was he a healer? Perhaps that was his specialty?

"Thank you," I said to Thresh.

He inclined his head toward me and resumed his work.

"My sister is fascinated by healing herbs," I said. "You'd be her hero."

His features sagged in amusement, color popping into his dark cheeks.

"You're a very dumb girl," Peeta declared.

"I second that," Johanna said from her corner of the camp.

"You're welcome," I said.

Again, that almost-smile. So boyish. So endearing. Composed of a thousand things. The sort of things people appreciated about the world. Like child's-play and dessert and horizons and holidays and song and folktales and friendship and invention and quiet evenings. That grin made even non-poetic souls think poetically. It was the only way to explain what had just passed through my mind. That, or I'd taken a terrible blow to the head.

"I won't forget what you did," he confessed.

"Good."

Finnick chuckled, stretching his arms above his head. "I like her."

"What about the rest of you?" Peeta asked, still staring at me.

Johanna and Gale crossed their arms and shrugged, which I took as a cautious vote to give me a chance.

"A trial," Thresh said, concentrating on the fragments of leaves that he dropped into a bowl on his lap.

"A trial basis," Peeta echoed. His expression caused a whirlpool of foreign sensations in my stomach. I didn't care for them one bit. "You touch a weapon without my say, or go anywhere without one of us, and I'll hang you in a net twenty feet off the ground."

All business. I was more comfortable with that. Still, I couldn't help teasing just to see what his reaction would be.

"Will you still feed me bread?" I asked.

His pink lips twitched. "Now tell us all about that shipment Snow's expecting."


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks again to my fantastic beta, Dustwriter. **

* * *

_Katniss_

The next days passed swiftly. But not without their share of discoveries.

Johanna let me borrow some of her clothes, offering me a pair of boots that she proudly announced she'd stolen and a tunic that was loose enough to conceal my breasts and preserve modesty. The garment stopped shifting once I tied a leather belt around my waist.

The more complicated part of the ensemble were the breeches. My fondness for wearing men's pants was immediate. I relished the comfort of the timeworn garment, the freedom of moving without restriction, without layers of heavy skirts. I also seethed with jealousy that men were permitted to dress like this every day.

However, leaving the tent was another matter. The breeches outlined my hips and legs to a mortifying degree. I refused to come out of Johanna's tent for an hour...when Finnick finally lost patience and carried me out to the cheers and whistles of the rest of the group. Peeta stopped clapping when he got a good look at my outfit.

The expression on his face caused a riot of emotions inside me. Agitation, exhilaration, delight, fear. Deciding what feeling mattered most, which one dominated the rest, was too much of a task for me, so I merely them all fuse together.

Outwardly, I did what I do best. I pretended not to care what he thought.

The following day, we rose at dawn to distribute the loot Peeta's band had collected, including my ring. I went with them to the village, concealing myself in the bushes and watching as Peeta moved deftly from house to house, flinging palm-sized sacks of coins and jewels toward the front door of every cottage. It took hours, but the look of joy and gratitude on people's faces tapped into my heart, confirming an unfortunate truth: Peeta and his gang were good. They went about their business unlawfully, but their intentions were pure.

Betraying them would require betraying these cottagers. Imprisoning Peeta Mellark and his band would strip them of a necessary source of survival. Could I go through with it? What would Snow do to Peeta once he was locked in a cell?

The very thought of that boyish face battered and bruised and broken terrorized me in a way nothing ever had before. Could I tell them the truth? We might be able to to hatch an alternative plan to overthrow the monarchy...but what about my sister? My family?

Snow already knew I was with Peeta. If we rebelled, the king would conclude I had something to do with it. He was expecting us to breach the palace as it was, which meant we wouldn't have the element of surprise. And if we failed, my family and The Seam would suffer. Prim. My father. Rue. The Saes, who made me lamb stew whenever I was sick and taught me how to sing. The Undersees, who always found a way to organize celebrations even in the grimmest of times. Sheriff Abernathy, who talked sense into me whenever I needed it and let Prim play with his geese after our mother had left. Thom, who helped build The Seams' market square and commissioned a Christmas play for the children every year. My list was endless.

The king would punish them all. Too many lives that I cared about were at risk. I couldn't gamble their future. They were my family. Peeta's gang of thieves were good people, but they were also strangers.

I had to choose the lives of The Seam over Peeta's. My home over his.

I despised myself. I kept moving forward, hoping not to get attached but finding that more and more difficult.

Each person in Peeta's group possessed a tent wide enough for a sleeping cot, a container of personal items, a water basin, and a supply of candles. I couldn't help musing that their camp had taken time to build, and it was hardly mobile. Not at all suitable for a quick getaway. They'd become used to being hidden. Perhaps they didn't expect anyone to ever find them.

Johanna grudgingly let me share her cot, but she tossed and turned worse than Prim. She also talked in her sleep, puffing out Gale's name more than once. I didn't know how to interpret that.

Until I saw them kissing.

It was my fourth morning with them. I was passing by when it happened, carrying wood I'd helped Thresh gather. Johanna and Gale had been fighting over whose turn it was to feed the horses, lashing out insult after insult while Finnick pretended to keep score as though it was a jousting match. Out of nowhere, Johanna stopped, fist on her hips. She pinned Gale with a smirk while his mouth wreathed into an angry smile. They stared at each other with a hostile playfulness that puzzled me to the ends of the earth.

"Get over here," he said.

They collided like beasts in heat, arms tangling, lips locking.

I dropped the firewood.

Finnick groaned. "It's about time. They've never held out this long."

I resisted the childish urge to point. "They...they, um...they're..."

"Oh, and _how_," he said, staring at the couple as openly as I was. "They bicker until they're sufficiently aroused, and then we don't see them for hours."

Prudence told me that I should look away, but I couldn't. I'd never witnessed such an intimate moment between a man and a woman. I'd also never been kissed. Watching them peaked my curiosity, entranced me, stimulated parts of me that I didn't know existed.

It made me think of someone else. Someone I shouldn't be thinking about.

Someone who chose that instant to exit his tent, bow and arrow in hand.

Noticing the passionate moment between his friends, Peeta's eyes found mine, catching me in a moment of unguarded, greedy fascination. I felt like I'd been spying. I felt embarrassed. I felt hungry.

I turned away, afraid my thoughts were written all over my face.

Finnick elbowed me. "No need to act so coy. Or are you that pure?"

What to say. "I…"

"Looks like fun, doesn't it?" he purred. "Want to try it?"

"She's coming with me," Peeta interjected, striding away and expecting me to follow him.

The arrogant gesture nettled me and replaced the warmth I'd been feeling a second ago. All the same, I tailed him into the woods. I kept my distance from him, schooling myself not to stare too hard at his body as it moved through the trees. His cape flapped in the wind, making me think of light, feathery touches.

He was so fixated on the path ahead of us that I wondered if he forgot he wasn't alone.

Silent and dexterous, he hopped onto a log that extended over a lake. I climbed up behind him, feeling about as graceful as a fork. Together, we shuffled across the narrow beam and halted at the halfway point, where Peeta knelt. My treacherous gaze traveled to his thigh muscles beneath the thin cloth of his pants, rekindling that feral desire I'd felt earlier.

"Come here," he murmured, indicating for me to perch in front of him.

I maneuvered to the spot he'd specified, grateful that I didn't have to look at him anymore.

And then we waited.

I endured fifteen minutes of silence before I couldn't take it anymore. "What are we doing?"

"The first thing you need to know about hunting is this: Be quiet."

He'd taken me hunting?

I surprised myself by getting excited, clamping my lips shut like a good student. I was giddy at the thought of being useful. No man, not even my father, would have let me perform an unrefined, male-dominated activity. I craned my neck, scanning the woods with the same enthusiasm I remembered having as a little girl when Rue and I used to play hide-and-seek.

Yet I felt an unmistakable tension between this boy and myself. It swelled into a physical thing I could practically reach out and touch. I failed to understand the unfamiliar sensations he awoke in me, the newness of them, the doubts and insecurities and anticipation they stirred up. They thrilled me.

They scared me.

Above us, a twig snapped.

I shifted and froze as Peeta's arm slid across my collarbone from behind. He pressed a finger to my lips. Then he used that same finger to point toward a meadow on the other side of the lake.

A doe. Beautiful. Proud. Delicate. Its body moved like a mechanical apparatus, its snout rising to smell the air, its fur slick and glossy.

Peeta crept closer to me and positioned the bow and arrow in my grasp, careful not to put pressure on my wounded arm. He situated my quaking fingers in the right spot, pausing briefly to curl one digit against mine. Was it a message or an innocent gesture? His body encased mine like a pearl tucked into a shell. It was all I could do not to let my head fall back against him.

"Relax you shoulders," Peeta whispered.

I did.

"Follow the line of the arrow."

I did.

"Pretend it's an extension of your arm."

I did.

His lips parted, expelling a breath against my nape. My own mouth fell open, wanting to capture that breath and swallow it, swallow a piece of him. The buds of my toes curled.

His voice dipped lower, barely audible. "And...release."

The arrow soared.

It hit.

The thud of the animal's body sent a cluster of birds scattering from their branches.

Peeta turned to me and grinned. "Not terrible."

Another feeling swept through me: pride. It made me ponder what else I was capable of, what talents I could master if I let myself try. Out here, I didn't have to limit myself to the rules of the sexes. I didn't have to occupy my days with the mechanics of curtsying or needlepoint. I could be someone different. Someone wild. Someone stronger.

Ever since my father had placed me on the marriage market, I'd lost myself. My world had been reduced to a humdrum routine of mindless courtship and soulless endeavors such as learning to bat my eyelashes and listening to Effie preach about swaying my hips to catch a man's eye.

Peeta Mellark had just brought me back to life, reminded me that the future could still hold promise and discovery. I would always owe him for this moment.

I craned my head up at him. "Thank you."

A long look smoldered between us. Our faces were so close, so close, so close. Peeta cleared his throat.

On our way home, he carried the doe over the bridge of his shoulder while unbidden thoughts plowed through my mind. I was jealous of that animal for capturing so much of his attention. I wanted him to track me the same way. I wanted him to catch me.

I fretted over my sanity. This boy may be honorable, but I had no choice but to label him as the enemy. Anything less would threaten The Seam. Thus, the sooner I conquered these urges, the better.

We feasted that evening. As my teeth tore through a piece of meat, a droplet of grease oozed down my chin. I chuckled as Finnick swiped at it with his thumb, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

My mirth deflated just as soon as it had come. I wished I could just detest them all. Every second in this camp pulled me in two directions.

The sun set. Gale retrieved his lute and flicked his fingers against the strings.

"Will you sing for us?" Thresh asked.

It took me a second before I realized he'd singled me out. The request astounded me. One, because I hadn't expected it. Two, because I hadn't expected it to come from Thresh. He must have been sincere, as he didn't make the effort to speak unless he had something important to say.

"Yes." Finnick slapped his thigh. "Yes, yes, yes. Please do. Quench our thirst for merriment. Entertain us, m'lady. I need to see how your mouth moves when you do that."

I shifted on my seat. "I haven't sang in a long time..."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Peeta concentrating on his meal, chewing with a tightly closed mouth. What ruminations galloped through his mind as he ate? What did he fear most? What would it take to make him laugh out loud? What was his favorite color? Did he like music?

"Alright," I said. "What's your pleasure?"

"Show us where you're from," Thresh said.

That was easy.

"I saw a meadow today," I announced, wondering if Peeta knew I was referring to our hunting trip. "There's a song in The Seam about one. Gale?"

Gale nodded and began to play, the sinewy melody vibrating like crisp leaves skipping across the ground. The tune triggered something in me. I longed to indulge the group and give them the brightest rendition possible. I put my entire body into it, retracing my steps to my childhood, when I'd first learned the words.

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow..._

Peeta's head snapped up.

My lids shuttered closed so that I wouldn't look upon him.

_A cloak of leaves, A moonbeam ray..._

I missed home. I missed my sister.

_Forget your woes_...

I missed the feel of that bow and arrow. Already, I missed hunting with him.

_Here is the place where I love you..._

When the last note slipped from me, I opened my eyes. Silence greeted me. Gale balanced the instrument on his lap and grinned. "I've missed that song."

"Well," Johanna said, trying to mask her regard. "That wasn't annoying."

They clapped, and Thresh thanked me, and Peeta...

Peeta stared at me in a manner I didn't understand.

Thresh was the first to retire. And then Johanna and Gale, still basking in the glow of their lovers' display from that morning. Peeta followed soon after, heading toward his tent without giving Finnick or me a passing glance.

Disappointed, I focused on Finnick with renewed determination. I couldn't lie to myself. I enjoyed flirting with him. It felt harmless enough and I was desperate to connect to someone, to quell my loneliness. Yet I knew I had to be careful not to encourage him too much.

Our conversation veered toward the subject of love.

"You know, my lady, if you're nervous about your wedding night, I can help prepare you," he hinted.

I didn't take the bait. Over time, his comments shocked me less and less.

"Are all of you boys this relentless with girls or is it just you?" I asked. "What makes you so eager?"

I never anticipated he would take the question so seriously. His features bent under the weight of a mysterious sadness. "Pleasure is a very effective means of avoidance."

Intrigued and concerned over Finnick's change of mood—had I offended him?—I waited for an explanation. The fire from our meal crackled and flicked the air like fingers reaching out for something it couldn't have.

"Once you've loved, you'll either be in constant bliss or recovery. I could be in recovery, but I prefer bliss," he said, puzzling me even more with his cryptic answer, leaving me no insight as to where he'd go with it. He seemed to be musing to himself now.

"Thresh simply hasn't found a girl yet. Gale's found a girl, but he can't seem to hold onto her longer than one night at a time. I had a girl but lost her. Her name was Annie."

"What happened?" I probed.

"She lived by the ocean. She _was_ the ocean. This girl who thrust herself toward life, smelled like salt. You know how the tide can sneak up on you and get your feet wet before you realize what's happened? That was Annie. She snuck up on me." His tender laugh sounded as though it had been conceived amongst the waves. "I was going to marry her but…she loved to swim a bit too much."

I gasped.

"The tide just took her. Just like that. I wasn't there."

"I'm sorry," I said, aware that it did him no good.

"I mean no offense, Lady Everdeen. I seek women out because if I don't keep myself occupied, my body will continue to ache for the one person it will never be near again."

His forthrightness stunned me. I couldn't produce an adequate or soothing response.

"But in your case, I'm not trying to compromise you. And I don't think you're seeking my…company," he went on. "I'm merely jesting with you because it's easy and entertaining, and I think you're letting me for the same reasons. And others." His eyes roamed over to where Peeta had been sitting.

I blushed. "I'm…I'm not trying to…I don't know what I'm doing."

Finnick nodded. "You're alone, living with strangers. You're human. A flesh and blood girl. And he's a boy. It's natural, but there are greater things at stake."

"I know," I said.

"No. I don't think you do. You and I—we may be toying with each other, but Peeta is a different story." He considered his next words carefully.

At what point had we tripped into such a deep discussion?

"After Annie died, I left home, wandered around with no will, nothing to care for. Then I met Peet and Gale and Thresh. They were lost souls, too. Peet's mission to save the poor reminded me that no matter how much you lose, someone else is always worse off, and you still have something left to give them, to share if you search hard enough within yourself. Peet's exact words."

I didn't want another reason to like Peeta Mellark, but it was too late.

"He taught me there's always hope," Finnick said. "I just wish he would follow his own advice…"

He trailed off, reluctant. Curiosity didn't remotely begin to cover how I felt. I couldn't let him stop there, so I played dumb. "I'm not following you."

Finnick set his jaw. "Peeta had a girl once, too."

I sat up straighter. The heat from the fire seemed to increase.

"He may not act like it, but his heart is deep as a canyon and just as open. Delly Cartwright sunk her claws into that heart pretty quickly. They grew up in the same village somewhere up north. He loved her at first sight, devoted himself to her. I don't know the specifics but I believe he would have done anything for her." Even in the dark, I noticed how Finnick's face clouded. "Delly deceived him."

A battle erupted inside me. Remorse clashed with an unbridled bout of protectiveness. Which made no sense. I barely knew Peeta Mellark. Fate had demanded that I should barely like him. Because I was no better than this Delly girl.

My emotions began a dangerous loop. The more Finnick spoke, the less I wanted to hear, yet I became powerless to resist him and his tale.

"She pretended to love him publicly, but only to look desirable to her childhood best friend," he conveyed. "When that friend proposed, Delly cast Peeta aside. That was around the same time both his parents died. He left home in the same manner I did, with nothing holding him back. That was a year ago. He was only sixteen."

Finnick turned to me in earnest. "I wouldn't betray this information to you except…Lady Everdeen, Peet has had a hard time trusting people ever since Delly. That's why it's phenomenal that he gave in and accepted you so quickly. Forget about all the sense you made. His deal with you proved that he still believes in honesty. He wants to trust again." He lanced me with a deadpan expression. "Peet is my truest friend. Whoever he trusts, we all trust."

Did Finnick doubt my integrity? Did he suspect me? Or was I projecting this due to my guilt? He'd been the first one to endorse me, after all.

Or maybe he was clever that way, employing his charm to get me to let my guard down around him, then stabbing me with his warning. How shallow I'd considered his character until now. How much I'd underestimated him.

It wasn't unusual for him to be looking after his own. It's what I would have done if an outsider had nudged their way into my family's domain.

How was I to respond to this?

I swallowed , praying he couldn't see right through me. "Then I'm honored you're giving me a chance."

He smiled, returning to his usual, smooth self. "There's nothing more alluring than an honorable girl."

I bade him goodnight and went to bed, though sleep was impossible. At first, my restlessness stemmed from the impact of Finnick's story. I was planning to do the same thing as Delly: deceive. The only difference was Peeta wasn't in love with me, nor I with him. But this fact didn't make me feel any better. Neither did the image of Prim's sweet, dependent face.

The second reason I couldn't rest had to do with the primal sounds Gale and Johanna started making from inside his tent. Their moans cut through the camp. I pinched my eyes closed, feeling like an intruder even though they weren't being quiet about it, distressed because of the way my hips moved against the blankets in response.

Was I the only one hearing this?

And…what was it like? Did it hurt as much as Effie had said—dear God, I still cringed at the memory of her sauntering into my room, sitting Prim and I down and presuming to lecture us on the worth of our innocence. She'd used a metaphor involving a sugar cube ("This is your virtue") and hot water ("This is what happens to your virtue when you make undignified choices. It dissolves.") that neither my sister nor I could take seriously, much less comprehend.

Effie had then drawn a diagram—a _diagram_—illustrating what happened between a man and a woman on their wedding night. After our chaperone left the room, Prim and I buckled into laughter and fed the drawing to her pet goat down in the carriage house.

Lying in my cot, something awful happened. I had a vision of Seneca above me, claiming ownership of my body before I was ready. I'd been enduring nightmares about him for days, but now those nightmares invaded my consciousness, too.

I recoiled, my fists bunched, and I twisted my face into my pillow. I needed to escape, if only for a little while.

Remembering the lake Peeta had taken me to that morning, I swept off the covers and reached for my breeches.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Peeta_

The moans were driving him crazy. He envied Finnick and Thresh's talent for snoozing right through the colorfully ripe sounds of sex that buzzed through their camp. He also envied the good time his best friend was having.

Not because it was with Johanna. But because of the happiness it certainly brought Gale. And the fact that Johanna would never turn her back on Gale afterward, regardless of how much they bumped heads. They were mad, literally, for one another.

It lifted Peeta's spirits as much as it broke him.

Requited love wasn't a luxury he'd had in a while. Or ever.

To this day, he couldn't say he regretted his fake romance with Delly. It may have been a tryst for her, a ploy to win the heart of someone else, but it had been real for Peeta. Looking back, her lack of affection for him was more obvious now.

Although on one spring night, he'd made her feel the same thing Gale was making Johanna feel.

Peeta had been play-chasing Delly in a field when it began to rain and he sprained his ankle. She'd helped him into a cave nearby and they stayed there until morning, until it was dry enough for her to get help. Sometime between him declaring he knew everything about her, and her uttering the word "forever," she'd slid on top of him. The rest of the memory revolved around the chirping sounds of her rapture. Beneath her, he'd joyously fallen apart like a dandelion.

He'd loved her so much that, during the act, he pretended not to hear another boy's name on her lips. That part Peeta couldn't forgive himself for.

At least Gale wouldn't suffer that fate. Peeta didn't want to begrudge his friends' enjoyment, but nevertheless he'd talked to Gale once before about keeping it down.

Being notorious required sleep.

Peeta wondered if Lady Everdeen could hear his friends panting and what she thought of it. Then he began to wonder other things. What kind of noises her spicy voice made when…

Never mind.

He scrutinized the canvas ceiling.

That voice. Her singing had punched him in the heart. He hated her for it.

She'd gotten friendly with Finnick over supper. In spite of Peeta's efforts not to watch them laughing and humming with energy, he'd done nothing but gnaw on his food and notice too many things about her. The bend of her slender knuckles. The gaping and empty and _very real_ space between her knees. The music of her giggles, so unrehearsed and raw you'd think happiness was a rarity in her life.

Peeta had listened to their banter until he'd grown too tired to put up with it.

And now this. If history was correct, Gale and Johanna's mating ritual wasn't going to end any time soon.

Escape was essential, if only for a little while.

Peeta needed to dunk himself head first into a deep and frigid pool of water before his hand crept any further down his stomach. It was one thing to fantasize about random maidens. It was another thing to fondle himself to the tune of his own friend's orgasm. He would not lower himself to that level.

He got out of bed and snatched his pants off the floor.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you to Chelzie, TomiStaccato, iLoVeRynMar, and Court81981 for your thoughtful PMs on this. You guys are the brightest constellation!  
**

**Musical inspiration: "The Secret Wedding" by James Horner (instrumental).**_  
_

* * *

_Katniss_

No one saw or heard me leave. I consulted my memory, using it as a guide to take me through the woods, hedging only once at a bend. An owl hooted. The moon popped from the sky, as pasty as King Snow's hair. For many, trying to find a lake with only the moon as a light source was foolish. Yet the forest didn't intimidate me. It never had. It was the one place I knew I would never get lost.

I recalled the path Peeta had taken me down and smiled when I found it. I listened to the steady rhythm of my steps, calming me like a gulp of precious mulled wine. Sometimes I wondered if darkness was more real than daylight. Daylight tended to prune away the harsher truths of the world, magnifying instead the illusion that life was simple and endurable if one kept faith.

But on nights like tonight, people had no choice but to confront who they really were, what truly mattered, what hindered them. If one had the will to face the dark, one really knew how to endure.

The darkness should have threatened me, but it didn't. It wasn't one of my fears. I had plenty of others.

Losing my family.

Their deaths being my fault.

My fiancé. Fading into his shadow. Never knowing who I was beyond him.

Starvation, even though comparing the quantity and quality of my meals couldn't match the hunger of other people. Those who existed without a Baron for a father.

Seeing my mother again someday, although she'd abandoned us, disgraced our family, long ago. And I harbored no secret desires for her return. She'd left my father for a pauper. The man's status was inconsequential to me, but I would not forgive her for severing Prim's fragile heart.

I would not turn my back on my sister like that. Ever.

And my father. He'd stared into space for months afterward. In this past year, he'd begun to return to us, trying every day to atone for the grievances he'd inflicted on Prim and I.

In a way, wedding Seneca was safe. I should prefer it. It would prevent me from growing so vulnerable to love that I'd collapse if my husband ever left me. I would never have to miss the sounds my companion made in the morning, or the special touches he reserved for me, or the signs of an impending quarrel. A marriage of convenience would prevent me from clinging. It would keep me from becoming my father.

Perhaps, I'd been too quick to accept his apology. But he was my papa. Unlike my mother, he'd come back to me. He taught me to swim.

Just as the recollection came, so did a view of the lake. A sheet of silver that reminded me of a coin in Prim's knick knack collection. Somber and blank. I stood at the edge, content to stare for a while. A wall of rocks rose on the opposite end of the bank. The pool appeared to be deep.

What would I find at the bottom?

Prim or Rue might make something up like a hidden city or mermaids or a prince who'd drowned himself from a broken heart. I thought about practical things like a lost knife or missing arrow. A tool to slit one's wrist.

I glanced away, annoyed as usual when my thoughts drifted toward death. I knew I wouldn't do it, leave Prim or Rue or Papa. Nevertheless, that didn't mean the possibility didn't march across my mind occasionally.

For shame! My life wasn't so very bad. Seneca and his father may be monsters, and I was slated to promise myself to the prince. I was liar, pledged to become a glamorous whore and to obey someone else's rules, to adopt their morals, but my life wasn't bad. My sister loved me, and I loved her. I had friends. I had shelter. I had food. I had no right to envision giving up.

Finnick hadn't. Thresh hadn't. Gale hadn't. Johanna hadn't.

Peeta Mellark hadn't.

I pulled apart my side braid, shaking out the long tresses. Holding up my hair for a moment, I let the breeze beat against my neck and the pearls of sweat that had gathered there.

I thought of Gale and Johanna's anger. The main ingredient of their passion. I remembered their sounds, the changes it had ignited in the lower region of my body.

I sighed and pulled my tunic over my head, unwound the bandage on my arm, and then dared look down at my reflection. Rarely did I inspect it with enthusiasm. I didn't have a looking glass in my room for this very reason. Admiring oneself was vain. Judging oneself was daunting.

Who knew why the sight of my person captured my interest now. I stared at my breasts, how they peeked out of my chest, small and pliant as dough, pursing in the center, stretching out as though asking for something. What in the world did men see in them?

I pulled off my boots, feeling spontaneously ceremonious about shedding my garments. I'd never been naked out of doors before. No need to rush. There weren't many firsts in my future that I could look forward to.

Undoing my breeches, I slid them down and used my toe to fling them aside. Clad only in my ivory underpinnings, I turned from side to side, quizzical, critical as I studied myself against the lake's surface.

I bared myself fully, pushing the last remaining cloth over my thighs and dropping it to the grass. Pressing my palms against my lower back, I deduced how little curves I had, how the night turned my skin gray. Mine was a practical figure. It would have to suffice for Seneca. Soon, all of what I saw within the pool would be his.

I waded into the water, gasping at the cold that pinched my toes, then my knees, then my hips.

A thwack of leaves came from behind. Crossing my arms over my chest, I whipped around and scanned the woods.

Nothing. No one.

I shook myself, but I hurried the rest of the way into the lake until I was fully submerged. For a while, I stood there shivering, needing to be certain I was alone. After a few hectic moments, I relaxed again. I fell backward and floated like a lily pad, letting the moon's rays coat me from head to toe. Once I began to move, getting used to the temperature took no time.

I dove under, my hair swirling around me like vines, my mouth blowing bubbles. Maybe this was how birds felt. Maybe this was as close to flight as one would ever get. I came up for air, restraining my sudden urge to laugh because this felt so good. The feeling was mine and mine alone. This lake was mine.

Or I'd thought it was.

But then I heard a distant plop. The surface rippled, and it was hard to decipher if it had been me, or an animal, or something else. The silence that followed felt suspect. It had to be some nocturnal creature mistaking me for prey.

I reminded myself that I wasn't afraid of the dark, I wasn't afraid of the dark, I wasn't afraid of the dark. I swam backward...back...back.

Someone's back.

Someone's slick back.

Someone's slick back against mine. Spine rubbing against spine.

My scream hit the tree tops. I veered around, thrashing wildly and flopping like a hooked fish.

"Would. You. Stop. Splashing. Me?" a boy's voice snapped.

I wiped the water from my eyes and discovered a set of blue irises fastening onto me. Peeta Mellark. What was he doing here?

"What are you doing here?" we hissed at the same time.

He bobbed a few feet away, staring at me like I was either a ghost or a madwoman. He was soaked from my onslaught. His nose dripped. His sodden blond hair was darker than normal. His shoulders...

His shoulders!

A mountain of bare skin peeked out from the surface. What was he wearing beneath the water? What was he _not_ wearing? Why did he not seem bothered by the fact that we were naked and in close proximity to one another?

A mortifying possibility sneaked into my mind.

"Wh-what did you see?" I demanded, wanting to cover myself even though the lake did a considerable job. "Were you watching me?"

"Watching you do what? Swim? I didn't know you were here. I told you not to leave the camp without one of us."

I felt defensive. "I do not require a leash."

"I'm beginning to doubt that," he said, panting from having to swim in place. "So I ask again: What are you doing here?"

I dragged my gaze to the right but failed to focus on anything. "I couldn't sleep."

It did not matter that my tone had been solid. My skin prickled with warmth and my cheeks blazed, offering a more detailed answer than I could have provided verbally.

Peeta was quiet.

"Neither could I," he said, the weight of his voice surprising me.

He sounded thoughtful. Aware. Far too aware of what I meant.

In that instant, I understood. He'd heard Gale and Johanna, too.

Around us, the leaves sprouting from the Alders and Oaks brushed like fingers. Like lovers. Gracious. What had this shift in my life's course done to my presence of mind?

"In any case," Peeta said, sobering and giving me a territorial look. "This is my lake."

"No, it's not," I argued. "It's mine. I was here first."

"You wouldn't know about this place if I hadn't brought you here."

"You're right. Thank you for that," I said politely. "Are you getting tired?"

"No," he answered.

I didn't have to be a mind reader to know my question irked him.

"You appear to be getting winded, Mr. Mellark—"

"I swear to God. It's _Peeta_."

"Well, it's Lady Everdeen to the likes of you. Would you like to go to the shallow end? It's much easier on beginners."

"I can swim, thank you."

I pursed my lips. "My suggestion was in earnest. I don't want you drowning on my account. You're too heavy to rescue."

He laughed suddenly. It shook me to the core. I felt as though my life was complete, for as long as I was capable of making him sound like that. He was infuriating and far too fetching for his own good.

"Fancy yourself an expert, Lady Everdeen? Care to truly find out who owns this lake?"

I knew a challenge when I heard it. I turned away, lampooned by my state of undress and mad because he tempted me nevertheless, probed that side of me that wanted to be simply a girl. That wanted to play.

"Race me," he said.

"No."

"Do you see that rock formation across the lake?"

"No."

"I'll count to three."

"No."

"One, two—"

I cut him off, slicing through the water the way my father showed me how, careful not to expose myself. I made it to the stone wall, which turned out to be a shallow portion of the lake. My feet hit the muddy floor. I glanced around, triumphant.

My jaw dropped when I saw him already there, grinning like court jester.

"How…" I trailed off.

"I guess we know who the real victor is."

I scowled. I slapped the water, drenching him once more.

Peeta tsked. "Poor sport."

"You cheated!"

He splashed me back. I retaliated. He snapped his fingers against the surface, sending a miniature gust of water at me. He made a funny face.

But this wasn't funny. This wasn't proper. This was a breach in civility and dignity. This was deviance. This was scandal. If anyone saw us, I could be ruined. I should not have raced him. I should not have spoken to him at all. I should not have come here. We were indecent and by ourselves and...why was he smirking?

This wasn't funny. It wasn't. It wasn't!

My smile betrayed me. I sucked my lips between my teeth to stop it. In reaction, Peeta's bright eyes flashed, renewed with energy. He crossed them comically.

A wanton giggle tumbled out of me.

He grinned. I hesitated.

We paused.

We played.

We pitched wave after wave of water at each other to the point where I could barely see in front of me, unaware of how close we'd gotten until his hand whacked my arm.

I reeled back, dulling the moment with my frown. What were we doing? How was it that things happened so fast and so effortlessly with him? He was a drug I didn't know I'd consumed.

I opened my mouth to speak.

He stood. Half of his body rose from the water.

My tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth. I may as well have perished right there. Peeta was golden and glorious, his broad shoulders and chest tapering toward a bank of muscles just above…above the…above…

"We should get back," I said.

Peeta's smile faded. My aloof countenance did not faze him as he tilted his head and scrutinized me. "Don't you ever let go?"

Disappointment, frustration, and sympathy contorted his features. I did not care for his ability to read me so easily. And the last thing I required was his pity.

"I _was_ letting go until you got here," I said, confused and growing more than a trifle heated by the sight of him. Another minute of this and I would get myself into trouble.

"We were having fun," he grated, his voice rising.

"You're a pest."

"So are you. You're the one who wants to be amongst into our circle, so unbutton yourself. Or was I right to be guarded?"

"I am not duplicitous," I said, horrified that my chin was quivering.

"Really? Because I can't see the real you. I thought I just did, but maybe I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I was—"

I flung myself at him, the impact sending us careening back into the water as I crushed my lips against his. Peeta froze, arms extended out behind me. Not until a few seconds into it did I realize he wasn't responding.

I lurched away, my hands covering my mouth. I couldn't even muster up an apology. I wanted to die. I needed to go back to my tent this instant so I could die in peace.

I barely got two feet away before he whipped me around.

"Wait," he said.

"Peeta, I'm sorry. I'm not good with words. I—"

"That's alright. I don't need…" Something dawned on him. He released me. "You said my name."

"Huh?"

"You said my name."

Yes, I had.

He inched closer. "Was that your first kiss?"

How he was able to discern this so quickly was beyond me, but I didn't care. The question hadn't been smeared in condescension. On the contrary, it was attentive and gentle.

Hidden beneath the pool, my body quaked. "Did it seem like it was?"

Peeta nodded. He appeared content to dwell in the realm of uncomfortable silence. While I squirmed and wrung my hands and sought a means of escape, he calmly considered something.

What he said next terrified me. "Let me fix this."

I shook my head. "You can't."

"Let me try."

"The moment is over."

"It's not over until I kiss back."

I didn't deserve it. What did this boy see in me? What had I done to earn this?

The sound of crickets droned around us, creating an invisible ring. My heart became a presence in every part of me, blotting out the rest of the world and eclipsing my wish to flee. I could let this happen. Whatever _this_ was.

Or perhaps I had no choice at this point. Not when I caught that strange aroma of cinnamon that followed him wherever he went. Not when combined with the heady, earthy scents of a slumbering woodland. Not with such an eager face daring me to stop him.

"You're thinking too much," he murmured.

His palms found their way to my face, cupping the sides, thumbs brushing my cheeks. He brought my head nearer to his, nearer still. How close before something happened?

"And you're nervous," he said, watching me intently.

I was. But then he smiled, as if to say _there's nothing wrong with that_, and it seduced me. I suffered from his tenderness, near tears from the anticipation and relief and excitement and fear.

"A real kiss doesn't happen merely with mouths," he confessed, his fingers outlining my lips, studying them as they trembled. "We kiss with our whole bodies. Our hands and limbs. Our minds. Our..."

Our hearts, I thought, though neither of us acknowledged this aloud.**  
**

I leaned into his touch, wanting more, but he pulled back and said, "Lick your lips." But when I did, bowing them into my mouth to hide this action, he shook his head.**  
**

"Show me," he coaxed. "Let me see."**  
**

I tried to think of this in terms of his hunting lesson. He knew what to do, and inexplicably I wanted to learn, and his instruction would be thorough, and I needed to be brave. And to not swoon. So the second time, my free tongue roamed over my mouth.**  
**

Peeta exhaled shakily. "Good."

Then he skimmed my cheek, then kissed me there, chaste and saying, "Lightly." Then he ventured to the corner of lips, increasing the pressure, lavishing me with small kisses. My eyelids threatened to fall shut.

"Linger," he whispered, flicking the tip of his tongue against my skin.**  
**

Forbidden urges intersected and flourished within me. In desperation, my head swerved to catch his lips, but he inched away.

"Now open your mouth," he commanded, and I didn't waver, and he traced my shape with his velvety tongue, and I died a hundred deaths and came back to life.

Again, he evaded me. "Your turn. Do that to me."

And I charted the half-moon of his lower lip, the crook of his upper lip, the crease, the edges where they met. Hissing, he broke our connection and growled, "Give me your tongue."

While our lips brushed, I offered it to him. Which he grazed with his own. Teasing. Endlessly frustrating.

"Just like that. Only longer." He demonstrated behind my ear. "Wider." Another kiss, now more pronounced. "Deeper." Another one, this time using every shameless mechanism.

Peeta trapped me with his blue gaze. "I'm going to kiss you fully now, my lady."

I could only nod.**  
**

"Breathe," he whispered against my mouth.

And then those warm lips claimed mine.

It was neither gentle nor wild. It was just right.

I dissolved against his body, braiding my arms around his shoulders, my cooperation eliciting a moan from him. Our mouths stirred. They pushed and retreated. His hands traveled through my hair, securing my head into place as he deepened the kiss, prying my lips apart. When his tongue slipped inside and began its languid stroking, I became a girl on fire. The heat of it dislodged a sigh from my throat.

Without hesitation, Peeta clutched my hip with one hand, used his other to support my back, and drew me up out of the water. He crushed me to him. The sensation of our bare, wet chests pinned against each other made me ache in indescribable ways.

Gasps escaped us each time we pulled apart in order to kiss from a different angle. My thoughts fogged. They narrowed to the strength of his mouth, the rhythm of his tongue, the pressure of his teeth sinking into my bottom lip.

Everything he did communicated with a spot below my navel, as if connected somehow, without my control. Between my legs, my body flapped like a butterfly. It took flight, spreading its wings wide, aching for him.

A thousand years later, we broke apart. My vision lacked focus beyond anything but him. His eyes were darker than I'd ever seen them.

We stared at one another, awed by the sheer abruptness of this moment, faced with the choice of whether to cease or continue. Because we'd known one another a scant four days. Because this didn't make sense. The life of delicate breeding and morals that I'd been harnessed within were instantly sucked up like debris in a windstorm. I was naked and in the arms of a boy.

Heaven almighty, I did not want to stop.

We did not possess the faculty to speak, but the decision was made. Holding my gaze, his hands hooked beneath my knees and lifted, tipped my body further out of the water, exposing me completely.

And I should have been embarrassed. And I should have stopped him.

And I ignored all that because I wanted this. I wanted something real. Just once.

This felt too amazing to deny. Too infinite.

So instead I wrapped my legs around his waist, linked my feet at the small of his back, and arched against him.

_Do what you want with me._

_Please.  
_

He groaned and accepted my silent offer. My head fell back, straining for his touch as he trailed pillowy kisses along my throat, down to the shallow dip between my collarbone. He licked the area slowly before drawing the skin into his mouth. Never had I envisioned the spell lips and hands could cast until now.

Reaching my breasts, he paused. His mouth hovered above the right one, his hot breath beating against the sensitive skin. I pressed myself into him, inviting, allowing. He fastened his soft lips against the bud and sucked. My mouth gaped, legs squeezed him tighter and tighter with each flick of his tongue. It was like my body adopted its own will, skin flaring, muscles twitching, fingertips digging into his hair.

A heavy sound of appreciation rumbled from his chest, as though he were sampling a rare delicacy. He shifted from one breast to the other, outlining their shape with his kisses before seizing the nipple again. I mumbled and whimpered and said things I was certain I wouldn't remember.

He raised his head and dropped a whisper into my ear. "Hold onto me, Katniss."

Yes, that was my name. I'd almost forgotten.

I did as he said, entrapping him with my legs and clasping his shoulder blades. The lake swirled around us. We were moving. He carried me to the rock formation and maneuvered us into a cave-like passage, the roof barely high enough for him to stand beneath. Droplets fell from above and sprinkled into the pool. We tucked ourselves into a secret cove, the water still reflecting a bit of the moon, the walls shimmering around us.

Peeta set me onto a ledge jutting from the wall. My legs dangled in the water, the rest of me available to him as he positioned himself between my thighs. He swiped the hair off my forehead.

I whispered, "I do not know you."

He whispered, "And I don't know you."

_But I want you._

So be it. He continued to devour my memory, claiming my sigh with another kiss.

Even as his lips mapped a trail down the center of my glistening body, I did not understand what he was doing. Awareness of my nudity resided in the outer fringes of my mind, but the anticipation of what he planned for us throttled my self-consciousness. For he looked at me like I was beautiful. I felt that look in the backs of my knees, which he secured in his hands and lifted until my feet settled on his shoulders, forcing me to lean back on my flattened palms.

I became fascinated by our shadows glazed within the rock walls. He lowered himself further into the water, until only his head and his shoulders bridging my heels floated before me, his attention dedicated to the hollow between my legs. I flushed. My toes flinched and relaxed as he mumbled reassurances and caressed my calves.

And then his head disappeared. And my own head tilted of its own volition, the final crumb of my sensibility gone as his fingers spread my delicate area and his tongue descended upon me, flattening over the damp center and claiming its ripeness, traveling upward, over the curve of me, stoking it like a flame, and then beginning all over again.

When he located a kernel of nerves I had not known I possessed, it stirred from me a fresh batch of moans that clamored with the sounds of water dripping from overhead. He circled the crest of nerves and then faintly dabbed its peak, no lighter than a feather.

He repeated this pattern.

Repeated the torture.

Repeated it.

Unexpectedly, his lips seized that kernel and consumed it, draining it like moisture from a sponge, not letting go. His mouth and harsh _Mmm_ engulfed the very core of me.

That's when he began to bob his head.

My arms gave out, my back sagged onto the ledge as I gripped its rim and rolled from side to side, and yes, and this, and him, and him...him...him...

I hollered, the reverberation like an avalanche echoing inside this tiny cove. I nearly tipped over into the water, my feet pressing hard into him, limbs quivering, overwhelmed, weakened, and finally still, so very still, and how was this possible? How was it possible to produce such sweetness?**  
**

Peeta nestled me up into his arms. We held each other, bewitched, but stunned, pleased, but stunned, eager, but stunned. We waited a long time, long enough for me to calm down and realize how cold the ledge was. We spoke over each others' shoulders.

"I liked that so much," I whimpered.

"As did I," he said.

"Is that what lovers do?"

"That and more."

I let my silence indicate my wishes. Instead of being satisfied, my greed increased. His as well, because after a moment's deliberation, he slid me off the ledge. We emerged from the cave, where he pressed me flush against a smooth wall.

I buried my face in his neck. He nudged my thighs apart.

Then his finger explored me. It slipped passed my soft barriers, shooting upward into my body, creating a new kind of heat that had me seeing double. A new type of rapture, from a new angle, and from a new source. I gasped in shock against his mouth.

"Oh...oh my..."

"God," he finished huskily.

He withdrew from me, only to reconnect once more. It was strange. It was dizzying. But I welcomed the intrusion. The friction brought waves of sensation tearing through my center. They burned in a way that made me inconsolable with pleasure.

I did not want to release him. I wanted to keep his finger inside me all night, until he became a part of me, or until I was certain I would be able to recall this bliss with absolute clarity in the future. So that I might reenact it in the privacy of my chamber.

Our parted lips brushed. His hand and my hips rose and fell in unison, gently slapping against the water. We panted a series of weak noises, as if pained by what was happening.

A second finger joined the first. I let him know how it felt with my voice. My voice that I no longer recognized. It unleashed and soared above our heads.

"Sing for me," he hummed.

His free arm supported me beneath my backside. His abdomen began to heave against me and increased the force of our movements, the cadence of it unwinding a knot inside my body. Yet I felt myself clenching as his strokes became quicker. They curled at the ends as though beckoning me closer, closer to release, just a bit further.

I shattered once more. I sang and sang and sang. And then I went limp.

As I struggled to regain my senses, I doubted I would get closer to another than this. And so unexpectedly. And so rapidly. And with the last person I would have ever have guessed.

Peeta was mine. I was his. The rest of my days would not compare. I wished I could freeze this moment and live in it forever.

Once our breathing slowed, I started crying.

Yet again, I caught Peeta off guard. Every part of his upper body tensed.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No," I sobbed.

Still suspended against the rocks, I hugged him to me. He rubbed my side, reminding me how unused to being taken care of I'd become.

"Shhh, I'm here," he said. "I'm here."

I cried because he made me feel actually happy. I cried because I was going to cause him pain. I cried because I had no freedom beyond this lake. I cried because this was one night in which no one had expected anything from me.

I cried so hard. And Peeta let me.

And then he touched me again.


	7. Chapter 7

_Katniss_

We got dressed in silence. Peeta had already seen me—felt me—naked, but I hadn't seen him, only the top portion of his body unshielded from the water. I kept my back turned to offer him privacy.

He laughed. Not in a pretentious way, though. We'd crossed a threshold. We were far beyond modesty now.

But there was another reason for my restraint. I still reeled from what he'd done to me, how far I'd let him go, how much I'd revealed and discovered in his arms. And then I'd wept. I'd given him no explanation, although he hadn't asked for one. Embarrassment and confusion and uncertainty. I felt all these things.

Sweeter things, too.

The quiet continued as we navigated the path back to camp. I trained my gaze on the ground, listening for the owl I'd passed earlier, wondering if it had found its dinner.

No hoots this time.

Peeta laced our fingers together. I wanted to pull away. He had been easier to deal with when I'd known only Rigid Peeta. This tamer, more yielding version threatened me to a greater degree. It gave me insight into the boy he may have once been.

_He's been hiding this from people. He's been performing for the world._

I knew the feeling.

One second, my impulse was to withdraw my hand. The next, I considered shoving him, making a joke, flicking his earlobe. Playing some more. Just to see what kind of new reaction I'd get out of him. He was a landscape I didn't tire of exploring. I longed to test the boundaries.

I wanted to trap him against the nearest tree and sink to my knees and make him feel the way he'd made me feel. It would be so easy. Holding him prisoner with my mouth. In the dark. In the middle of nowhere. Listening to him whimper above me. Repaying him for his kindness. Apologizing the only way I knew how.

My palm squeezed his.

He didn't squeeze back.

In fact, the closer we got to camp, the more his fingers withdrew from mine. At the fringes of the encampment, his hand fell away completely, breeding a whole new pain. Finally, we managed to look at each other.

"Goodnight," he said.

I blinked. That was it? The boy with the bow was slipping from me already?

But what had I expected? That the closeness we'd shared at the lake would continue from here on? His friends depended on him to make the right decisions, including accepting me into their sphere. I was still a stranger. We'd done so much, yet we barely knew each other. He'd misjudged a girl before. He couldn't afford to complicate our situation further by openly embracing me.

Did he want to embrace me at all? Or had I been a distraction from what he'd lost? The possibility of that hurt, but I wasn't about to ask what our interlude had meant to him. Also, I had to think farther ahead. Even if we were to start something, it would not last anyway.

He turned to leave.

"But…" My voice made him wheel back around. My pending nightmares about Seneca and Snow the The Seam plagued me. "I don't want to be alone."

Grasping my meaning, Peeta looked past me, thinking.

"Please," I said. "Just a little longer."

He stared out at the distance, his mind gone for a moment, lost to a memory. He seemed troubled.

I wasn't the begging type.

He gave in and guided me into my compartment. I asked if going to his tent wouldn't be wiser. Johanna might walk in on us any minute. She and Gale had apparently finished. But Peeta assured me that she would stay with Gale until morning.

"I'll leave at dawn, but…only for tonight," Peeta cautioned.

We climbed into the pallet, he cradled me against his chest, and we watched the shadows dance across our tangled legs. Still thinking of the lake, I could not shake off the meddling image of him doing the same things with Delly. From there, my mind evolved to worse thoughts, including whether he had chosen our moment in the water to recuperate from her emotional assault on him. Secretly, I compared myself to her and felt uncharacteristically competitive.

It came out before I could stop it. "Have you ever been in love?"

Peeta stilled.

What did I want to hear? Did I want him to confide in me? Did I want details? Did I want him to lie?

"What did Finnick tell you?" he asked, his voice distant.

"Nothing," I fibbed.

Finnick had trusted me not to tell. I would not dishonor that.

"Have you?" I repeated.

Peeta stared at the ceiling. "Once."

He wasn't about to elaborate. But did he still love her? Did he avoid talking about her because it hurt too much? Or because he wasn't comfortable telling me? Everyone else in his group already knew the story, yet he was happy to leave me clueless.

He didn't seem interested in finding out if I'd ever been in love. Maybe he already knew the answer.

We changed the subject, asking safer, more random questions.

I told him about my family. He told me about his parents, who'd died of typhus within months of each other.

I liked green. He liked orange.

I learned to swim when I was six. He first picked up a bow when he was ten.

He liked to cook. I liked to eat.

"I like you," he confessed. "I think I liked you right away because when you smiled at Gale that first night, it bothered me."

Smiling at Gale? Yes, but we'd just discovered we were both from The Seam. We were merely being nice to each other.

"Johanna wasn't jealous," I pointed out.

"Johanna doesn't get jealous," Peeta laughed. "She owns Gale and she knows it. I wasn't worried about him. But you were—_are_—a mystery. You provoke me. You provoke me so much. You're brave without realizing it. You work so hard to restrain yourself because your emotions are so flammable and raw. I'd forgotten what it was like to be awed by someone. So…I like you."

When I first met Peeta, I could have never foreseen how sweet he would be underneath his coarse exterior. Delly must have taken that from him. Henceforth, I dedicated myself to loathing her.

"Kiss me," I said.

He took my mouth tenderly. My fingers dragged through his hair. This went on forever.

_I want you. I need you. I have you. I'll miss you._

"Katniss," he said against my lips.

"Peeta," I replied.

We laughed because this was our way of saying goodnight. As I sank against his body, my fingers drifted to his hip and felt the corded Seam bracelet I'd given him hanging off his belt.

kpkpkpkpkp

By the time I woke up, my pallet was empty. The metallic gray light and prickling call of crows outside suggested it was dawn. I rolled beneath the woolen blanket, groggy and giddy and grief-stricken. Peeta and I had fallen asleep late. He'd worn the bracelet I gave him—not around his wrist, but on his hip. He was softening up to its meaning.

Of all people, I'd given my prized possession to Peeta Mellark. Life was strange, indeed. The knowledge that I'd found someone worthy of that token filled me with incandescence. For all long as I could remember, I'd wondered whom I would offer the bracelet to, hoping I'd make the right choice and that it would be special.

I'd originally sacrificed it to Peeta under the pretense of loyalty, thinking only of The Seam.

Now, I couldn't imagine a better person than him to carry it.

I didn't regret last night, either. The lake, the rock wall, that finger swimming in me. Exploding in Peeta's embrace. Saying his name. Crying. I would not have that ever again, certainly not with Seneca. I would use the memory to anchor me in the future, on the evening I had to remove my wedding dress.

I tried not to think about when this was all over. What Peeta might do with my bracelet, knowing that I was a traitor. It would have little value to him then.

Would he have time to reflect on it? Or would Snow execute him quickly?

Of course, Snow would punish Peeta in the worst way. Him and all his friends. Publicly. Rue had said the king wanted it to be a show. That must certainly mean torture.

I would be forced to watch.

If I placed my pillow over my face, how hard would I have to press down in order to suffocate?

I bit into the plump mound and expelled a soundless scream. Here I was, glowing in the aftermath of Peeta's delicious lips, celebrating that he kept my bracelet close to him, reassuring myself of my actions. When this whole time, my mind had pushed aside the end result of all of this. Which would involve his pain and a fair amount of blood.

Conjuring up Seam faces reminded me of the importance of my task, but it did little to ease the sorrow. I'd used Peeta last night. My conscience and foresight had gone into hibernation from the moment moisture had inked between my legs.

I was a monster.

A world without him was now unthinkable. Perhaps I could find a way to get Snow and Seneca to spare Peeta. Perhaps with time, I could find a solution. Perhaps I should kill Peeta myself, sneak into his cell and poison him in his sleep, send him to his death gently and comfortably. Then lie and say I was overcome with rage.

Too soon. Too early. Too much.

The tent flapped open and in shuffled Johanna. She dropped onto the cot beside me, hard enough to make the entire pallet quake. I kept my face in the pillow, hoping she'd go back to sleep.

"So how was he?" she asked.

My head shot up. "What?"

"Peeta. How was he?"

"I don't know—"

"Oh, rubbish on top of rubbish. I got up to pee last night and heard you whispering. I'm not dumb. And I'm a girl, so I'm also not blind. You better tell me how he was. Or I'll tell everyone else what you two are hiding."

"We're not hiding," I said miserably. "It was only…last night we talked."

"I did just mention I wasn't dumb, right? I can see it all over you. Your tits have turned the color of raspberries."

I pulled the neckline of my tunic closed. "We're fond of each other, but that's all. Peeta isn't committing himself to anything."

Johanna shrugged. "Good. Can't say I blame him. Bedding you not five days into our deal is a bad idea."

Commotion outside. I smelled the beginnings of a fire.

"Peeta's that rare breed of boy that doesn't think with his prick," Johanna shocked me by saying. "Although I would have liked a detail. Can't say I'm not curious how he uses it. So nothing happened? Well, that figures."

I'd never had a girl my age to talk to about intimacy. Prim was too young, and when I'd breached the subject once with Rue, she hadn't been able to stop giggling. Johanna wasn't an ideal candidate to gauge instruction from, but she was honest.

"What's it like?" I dared.

"Ah-haaaa." Johanna sat up on her elbows. "You aren't a prude, after all. How crass do you want me to get?"

I grunted and turned away from her. She poked me in the back.

"How much nothing did Peeta do to you last night?" she asked.

I wanted to make it clear. "Enough to want more, but it's over. I understand this."

Silence.

"If you keep up that strong will, I might get used to you," Johanna said. "Don't expect me to compliment you often."

"I'd prefer if you didn't, so we're in accord."

"The first time hurts like hell."

"Oh."

"It really hurts like hell. Make sure he relaxes you, otherwise you might as well be having sex with a razor blade."

I was about to ask what Johanna meant by relaxing me, and whether the answer at all resembled the methods Peeta had used last night, when Gale's baritone voice came from outside.

"Stand tall, stand tall, stand tall…"

Johanna rolled her eyes. "He only says that when it's time to tussle."

"To what?" I asked.

She pulled me off the cot. "Come on. It's actually a fantastic way to wake up."

When we exited the tent, instead of the sights and smells of breakfast, I was met by four shirtless torsos and columns of boy-male-man flesh.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Peeta_

The boys were getting ready for hand-to-hand combat practice when Johanna hauled Katniss out of the tent and pranced her toward them. Before last night, he wagered she'd never seen a bare chest before, let alone four of them in various capacities of strength and volume.

"Good morning, ladies," Finnick boasted, stretching his arms behind his back. "Come to join the fray?"

Johanna rolled up her sleeves. "I took you last time. I can take you again."

The look of pure, unadulterated wonder on Katniss's face was priceless.

Only Peeta wished her attention would stick to him, not the others. He wondered how he sized up against the rest of them, especially since size in general was a problem for him. Gale, Finnick, and Thresh were tall and mythical-looking. Peeta was not tall and didn't feel remotely mythical.

Finnick reacted to Katniss's blush the only way he knew how. He took advantage and flexed his biceps, which seemed to alarm her more than anything.

That made Peeta feel better. And that feeling increased when those gray eyes swayed toward him, then cascaded down to his waist, sending a pinch of excitement through him. She'd worn that same delectable expression on her face last night.

Last night.

Last night.

Last.

Night.

He'd meant for the kiss to be chaste, his willingness born out of curiosity and the strange desire to be her first. But when her lips had pressed against his, his control had snapped. He'd yanked her out of the water before he knew what he was doing. He'd made her sing. He'd loved every second of it.

She'd wept.

Peeta still didn't know what that had been about, but discovering how much his touch soothed her made him feel invincible. And confused. No one had ever needed him that badly. The moment she began to sob had sent him into a panic. It was the kind of unspoken closeness he'd always wanted with Delly. His experience with Katniss had peeled away the layers, reminding him of the old Peeta, the boy he was before Delly hijacked him. The boy who would have stood on his head for weeks if the right girl had asked him to.

Yearning weaved through Katniss's face as she stared at Peeta. She wasn't very good at hiding it. He would need to do something about that.

Peeta turned away.

She had no idea the effect she could have. If he wasn't careful, he was going to be forced to fight with an erection. He had to concentrate or Gale would have him pinned to the ground in ten seconds. Peeta channeled his desire into aggression and didn't face forward again until he'd mastered a perfectly blank expression.

Katniss frowned at him.

"The usual order or what?" Gale asked.

"Johanna wants Finnick," Peeta said. "We'll start there."

"I better win, then," Finnick said. "If Johanna makes it to Gale, it won't be combat anymore. It'll be foreplay."

Gale smirked.

"Winner fights Thresh," Peeta said. "Then Gale, then me, then…Lady Everdeen." He glanced at her noncommittally. "If you want to be one of the guys, you'll have to learn how to protect yourself."

Those eyes of hers narrowed. His indifference after last night was upsetting her. Good. The more pent up she got, the more energy she'd have.

"Fine," she said, crossing her arms.

"We'll teach you," he offered.

"Fine."

She was officially mad. He wanted to kiss her.

The first round went by quickly. Finnick didn't hold back on Johanna, delivering blows that she'd learned to block. He nailed her twice in the stomach, but she was fast and succeeded in sidestepping him so often that he ended up stumbling around like a drunken bear. It was over when Johanna crackled her fist against his nose and Finnick cursed. He hated it when his face got bruised.

Thresh was next. Johanna had yet to conquer him in a session. She hadn't deciphered his weak spots thus far, and Thresh knew that rage was her handicap. After failing to make contact with him once, Johanna belted out a frustrated howl and lunged for him. Thresh cupped her forehead with his palm and held her back while she threw punches at the air.

Thresh and Gale were equal in terms of strength and technique. Their fights always lasted the longest. But like Johanna, Gale got angry too fast. It was his downfall.

Peeta strode forward, aware that if he didn't beat Thresh, Katniss would have to fight him. They would take it easy on her, start off with a lesson instead of a battle. But still, he wanted to be the instructor.

While the other boys had height on their side, Peeta had the sharpest reflexes, enabling him to punch circles around them. It worked to his advantage. He dodged Thresh's fist, spiraling behind and wrapping his arms around the boy's waist, lifting and slamming him into the ground. Peeta wedged Thresh's face into the dirt with his knee.

Done.

He helped Thresh up and they shook hands and laughed.

Then Peeta turned to Katniss, who was standing in the corner, fuming.

"Come here," he said. "I won't bite. It's just a lesson for you. We'll teach separate moves later. First, let's see how your instinct works."

"Maybe she should start off with Johanna," Gale said.

Johanna elbowed him. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean, cork brain?"

"Just that you're the same size."

"So what? Weakling against weakling?"

"Jesus, Jo..."

Katniss shook her head. "I'll take Johanna."

"You'll take me," Peeta stated.

"No. I'm—I don't want to."

"What do you mean you don't want to?" he demanded.

She was better than that. He knew it. He'd seen the spark in her. The fierceness was there, locked inside.

"I don't want to hurt you," she said, her words appearing to have a deeper, unrelated meaning.

Unfortunately, this only succeeded in angering Peeta. He shoved her. She stumbled backward and ground her teeth, stubborn but stimulated nonetheless.

He shoved her again. "Looks like you can't hurt me. Can't even take me. Can't save anybody. Useless."

_Come on, Katniss. Hit me._

This time, when he pushed her, she pushed back.

"I'll take you," she grumbled.

Finnick wiped his hands together. "Go nice and slow, Peet. And watch her arm."

"No," Peeta said, eye to eye with her. "An enemy won't care about that arm. She'll learn how to fight with an injury."

She tipped her chin up at him. "I don't need favors," she snapped gorgeously.

He grinned, recalling her head flung back against the stone wall in the lake, her chest heaving against his. "Then get up."

"What—"

He used his leg to swipe her feet out from under her. She landed on her backside and rolled over, shaking her head in disorientation.

Peeta bent over her. "I said…get up."

She jumped to her feet. Peeta curled his fingers, beckoning her. Fury crippled her features. She plowed toward him, but he evaded her fist, blocking the move with his arm, spinning her around, and catching her in a headlock from behind.

"Think of taking a man off guard, m'lady," he spoke into her ear. "That's how you bested Gale, remember?"

"Um, we don't need to bring that up," Gale grunted from the sideline.

"Taking your opponent off guard gives you the upper hand. Don't show your emotions or they'll tap into your weaknesses quicker. Now, what do you have to do to escape?" Peeta quizzed.

She struggled.

"Katniss, you're strong. Stop second guessing yourself," he instructed. "May I call you Katniss?"

That did the trick.

She bit his arm. He released her and she pivoted, pounding him in the side with the toe of her boot. He puffed and staggered, but instead of seizing the opportunity and punching him, she moved to get away. This unnerved Peeta beyond measure. He'd hoped she would jab him in the ribs or go at him with her fists again. She wouldn't always have the opportunity to retreat.

He seized both her legs and lifted, sending her barreling chest-first to the floor, where he landed on top of her and spun her around, trapping her arms. Their bodies beat against each other in rousing frustration. So many things troubled him. Including her refusal to hit, which could get her killed.

"Done," he said. "Nice tr—"

A knife's edge pressed against his chin, tipping it up.

"Thank you," she breathed, steadying the blade.

The rest of the group let out a collective gasp.

Peeta swallowed. "Where did you get that?"

"While you were busy swapping partners, I took it from Thresh's bag and hid it in my boot," she answered without remorse. "Is this what you meant by surprising people?"

He peered at her. "Go ahead."

She flinched. "Excuse me?"

"We don't usually slice one another open, Peet," Finnick advised.

Peeta shushed him and enunciated the request once more, this time slowly. In spite of their lush rendezvous in the lake, he wasn't about to favor or coddle her. She wouldn't appreciate it anyway. He had no qualms about testing her, finding out how daring she could be, how much faith she placed in his instruction. Although she'd saved his life, he still needed to see if the opportunity to impair him tempted or tormented her.

Her hand trembled.

"We're supposed to trust each other. That means, I trust you to follow. You trust me to know what I'm doing," he said. "Now, do it."

With a guttural cry, she jerked the blade into his skin, succeeding only in nicking him and drawing blood before he whacked the knife from her fingers. She was panting, but she didn't look angry or flustered. She looked emboldened. Mesmerized. Like she never thought she could go through with it.

It elated Peeta.

"Good girl," he said. "Though, you'll still have to learn to hit—"

Her fist connected with his cheek, whipping his head to the side.

Finnick whistled.

"Like that?" she asked.

Peeta massaged the wound. Not hard enough to knock a man out, but more than he'd expected for her small frame. It was a promising first hit. He would be sore later.

She reached out and stroked his cheek, then eased her thumb against the red point she'd made in his chin, collecting a small droplet of blood. Her eyes seemed to ask, _What now?_ With those simple gestures, something inside him cracked open with the force of a thunderbolt. And he knew he was in big, beautiful trouble.

The gang started clapping while Peeta and Katniss stared at one another, their aggression dissipating. He tried to picture how she'd been as a child learning how to swim, the awareness of drowning if she got it wrong.

He helped her stand, knowing already what she was only now beginning to grasp. Yes, she may have needed his comfort last night. But in time, she could survive just fine without him.

kpkpkpkpkp

They played music and danced that night. Thresh bounced Johanna around the fire pit, then captured Katniss and took her for a spin as well. During combat practice, something had released her. She spoke and walked differently now, less burdened, like she might be able to conquer the world. Her carefree, buttery smile did Peeta in.

Whatever had released her had unhinged him, too. He ran his fingers through his hair. He was thirsty. He was parched. He was falling headfirst and he couldn't stop it. He realized he didn't want to.

"The stars are raining on us tonight," Finnick said.

"Do us a favor and try not to be a poet," Johanna mocked.

Everyone laughed except Katniss, who grinned sadly at Finnick.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he prompted.

He always said this before suggesting they go into the woods to stargaze. Thresh rose without question. Gale had to coax Johanna to go—she wasn't the stargazing kind. Normally, Peeta was keen on it. Tonight, however, he wanted just one thing.

"I'm staying," he said.

Finnick shrugged. "Suit yourself." He offered Katniss a hand. "M'lady, the sky is waiting for you."

"Oh, please," Johanna groaned.

Katniss hesitated, her attention skipping between Finnick's outstretched hand and Peeta's slack one.

She took Finnick's hand.

Peeta's shoulders sagged. It was a bad idea to be alone together anyway.

His band left, the sounds of their chatter fading into the trees.

He contented himself to poke the fire for a while, thinking of Delly and Seneca, mentally fusing their faces together. He used a stick to draw a picture of that mutant countenance in the dirt. He was halfway done when he heard her.

His head snapped up. He dropped the stick and stood. And there was Katniss, inching out of the forest. And there they were. By themselves.

And he went back to wanting just one thing.


	8. Chapter 8

_Katniss_

There wasn't a movement he could make that I didn't relish, or fear, or feel in the tips of my fingers. The mere act of him rising from his spot by the pit caused things inside me to expand. The stillness stretching from his end of the camp to mine made it clear we stood on a precipice. It was up to us whether we jumped or not.

"You came back," Peeta said.

"I pretended I didn't feel well. I don't know if they believed me," I responded.

Finnick had been in the middle of regaling us with a joke when more primal instincts quickly washed over me. I hadn't gone far into the woods before everyone's voices began to froth together in my head, making it difficult to pay attention. Once the sensation cleared, a single word remained.

_Peeta. _

It bounced from one end of my body to the other.

_Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta._

And I'd had to turn around. Now that I was here, though, I didn't know what to do. My palms moistened, and I wiped them against my shirt. Peeta didn't help the matter by advancing on me. I stepped back, but he kept coming forward, undeterred. I wheeled around and began gathering the cups that littered the ground, determined to keep my fingers busy.

His voice trailed me. "Why are you here, Katniss?"

"This place is a mess," I squeaked.

"Turn around."

"It wasn't fair to leave you to clean up."

"Forget the mess."

"There's still some meat left. Do you have a place to store it?"

"Stop," he said firmly.

I halted, almost dropping the cups when his chest brushed against my back. If I moved away, he'd stop me physically, which would lead to dangerous things. Things that involved his lips, and my lips, and _our_ lips.

Yet I did not stop him when he reached out in front of me, his arm traveling down my neck and over my collarbone, to my chest, hand halting at the neckline of my tunic. Furthermore, I leaned against him, giving him permission. He pulled the crisscross strings in the front, then slipped his fingers underneath the material, pressing his palm against my heart. The fire popped, embers darting into the air.

"I never expected this," he whispered. "I'm in agony."

"What is happening to us?" I asked.

"I don't know."

In a way, I did. I could have argued to myself that his face and lore had me spellbound, but I wasn't so foolish. It was more than that.

True, my predicament and its rapidly reducing timeline caused an uproar in my head, influencing me to act rashly. But it was more than that.

I never behaved like myself in his company, letting him teach and touch and taste me, cutting his chin, speaking without reservation, willing to expose every drop of my thoughts, sharing my desires and confronting my fears. With him, I'd met the girl I longed to be, brave and confident. He made me feel like his equal. He made me feel safe.

And still it was more than that. This stranger, who was not a stranger at all, had somehow crept through the cracks in my heart. With tenderness. Ardor. Trust_._

He made me cry. But he also made me smile.

Slowly, I pivoted on my heel, my nails digging into the cups.

Peeta stared down at me curiously. "Why did you return?"

_Because you called me here without uttering a word. Because, during our fight today, you made me feel strong. You made me realize that I don't like being pushed around. You made me realize that Snow doesn't have to win. You made me want to earn your faith. I came back to tell you the truth. _

_But your mouth is presently distracting me._

"For you," I admitted.

Those eyes dimmed to an incomparable shade of blue. "What do you want?"

"You."

"And?"

"You."

He smiled. "I meant what else?"

"You."

Peeta slapped the cups from my hands. They scattered across the ground. He hoisted me against him, crushing his mouth to mine while my arms scaled his chest, hands twisting in his hair. I moaned into his kiss when I felt his fingers dip into the front of my hose, tracing the slit down below.

He tore his lips away. "Do you like that?"

"Yes," I mewled.

"Do you want more?"

"Yes."

"Can I have you?"

"Yes."

Peeta slid his arm beneath my knees, swept me up like a bride, and carried me across the camp. We glided through the entrance to his tent. The glow from the fire bled into the space, making our figures pulsate, half-illuminated, half-shadowed.

He set me down. Now that we were here, we stared at one another, aware that this was happening.

In one concentrated move, he whipped me around, pulled the neckline of my tunic past my shoulder and dragged his lips across my skin. The back of my head lolled against him. His mouth assaulted me with knowledgeable kisses that revealed his experience to me like sunlight, and perhaps I would have been jealous to realize I wasn't his first. But in this moment, I soaked up the warmth of this discovery, because I knew he would make this memorable. Surely he would be a gracious lover and would ease my apprehensions as Johanna had advised he should, enough that I relished what would come. The same way I had relished the unknown in the lake, in the cave, and against the rock wall.

He yanked the tunic over my head and flung it to the side, focusing now on my other shoulder, then behind my neck, circling his lips and tongue over the nape. His fingers gripped my hips possessively, his breathing quick and hopeful and, dared I imagine, tense. Giving the impression that this was new for him.

Those fingers ascended to the cloth covering my breasts and unwrapped the binding, his attention fixated, revealing me in pieces. The fleshy swells, the beauty marks, the dark peaks. He sculpted them into his palms and resumed tasting my neck.

I sighed. Yes, this was new for him. Because it was with me.

I yearned to please him, to let him take my body and harmonize it with his, shy as the thought made me. And so the words spilled out.

"Peeta, make love to me."

He whipped me back around and raked his hands into my hair. "And so I will."

He did not give me time to respond. His kiss was feverish, his brazen lips commanding my own so that I felt the effects behind my ears, in my nipples and toes, as well as in my heart. There were so many reasons not to do this, but so many desires banished those reasons and pushed us closer.

We broke apart only long enough for me to pull off his shirt. I craved the weight of those muscles, eager for them to rest upon me, to move against me. I yearned to lay beneath him and cling to his roving form. To lodge him within me.

Peeta urged us backward, still kissing me, until we fell together onto his pallet. He eased off my hose, but I stopped him from removing his own breeches, wanting to own and control his nakedness. Impatient, I hooked my fingers over the waistband and thrust them down until I could no longer reach, kicking them the rest of the way with my heel before they toppled to the floor.

In his presence, I beheld a man for the first time, and my pulse thumped wildly at the sight. Blue eyes curtained with lust. The planes of his torso and abdomen flushed pink. His center so firm and male. Ready for me. For us.

He grinned, knowing this was a novel encounter for a girl such as myself, and I could tell the effect this had on him. His own primal gaze painted over me. The apex of my thighs became pliant and wet. He stiffened even more. He knew I was a virgin. I knew he was not.

"You honor me, my lady," he said, his voice cracking at the end—that distinct Peeta way of talking.

He crawled toward me and reunited his finger with my core, twirling the moisture inside me and strumming the nerves. Bringing my girlish fantasies to life. Hunting for my gasps. Preparing me, I realized as the pleasure braided tightly in my lower back.

I was still moaning uncontrollably and writhing against him when he withdrew, denying me release. I made a noise of protest that, for some reason, caused his lips to twitch. He kissed my hot temple.

"Soon," he said. "Very soon."

My thighs welcomed him. He secured himself between them, rewarding me finally with the bliss of his chest against mine, crushing my breasts as he lined himself up. He braced his weight on his forearms.

"Keep your eyes on me," he panted.

We watched each other. Our mouths fell open as he eased inside me, filling me little by little. He rounded his hips, sumptuously slow, laboring to stretch me with each movement. I hiked up my knees, allowing him to grind deeper, turning us into an extension of each other. His amorous pace became a very good ache.

Until the moment he flexed his hips, snapped them forward, and broke me. The burn split me in two. I clenched my teeth.

Peeta stopped, kissed me thoroughly, wiping the slate in my mind clean of pain, because his kiss was my life. His mouth intoxicated me. It formed a ring around my thoughts until nothing else existed but blue and the flapping of the tent's canopy and the wandering orange light from the outside fire. And I was lost.

At one point, the world spun, but I did not pause, too locked within his kiss to concern myself with the shift in atmosphere, whimpering as his tongue scooped up my own and our bodies tilted into each other.

It wasn't until another spark flickered through me that I opened my eyes. I realized that Peeta had rolled us over, positioning me on top of him. And that he was thrusting inside me. And that he had been for a while.

But it no longer hurt. Indeed, I felt the change, my wetness coating him, the way he crushed me to him and slipped in and out of me. The position was easier, enabling me to find my own comfort, which he'd expected because he encouraged my participation.

"Ride me," he said, urging me to sit up, which I did carefully, awed by the foreign power of seeing him there before me, hands splayed on my thighs, offering me dominion.

Flattening my palms against his chest and using it for leverage, I tentatively rocked back and forth. The upward pump of him, and his groan, and the sensation these things produced all merged together into one fierce cry from me. A cry that bred many more.

"You slay me, my lady," Peeta gasped. "Tell me I'll recover from you."

The way he looked up at me, unintentionally vulnerable, pleading almost, sent shivers of delight and desperation through my blood. I could not give him an answer. The only way to be truthful about what this boy did to my consciousness was to make him fly with me.

I feasted on him, swift and bold like something sprung from its cage.

Peeta forgot his request. Like allies in an endless race, we surged ahead, our groans primitive and untamable. In my gluttony for more, I glanced down and watched us collide in a dizzying rhythm, him disappearing and reappearing, the rise and fall of our coupling.

"Yes," he breathed. "Watch us. Watch with me."

"I have never seen anything so..."

I did not know how to finish. He nodded, understanding. And so we watched ourselves. I committed each part of him to memory. The bunching of his stomach muscles. The fine hairs on his forearms. The "ouch" he released as I fell forward and bit his shoulder to keep from sobbing.

He flipped us over again. My open limbs caught his body. My arms wound around his neck, and I yielded the power back to him, allowing him to cover me, his passionate thrusts burying me into the blanket. He laced our fingers together and raised himself higher. I chanted many things, his name and _yes_ and _please_ as he jutted forward and pierced through my walls.

I watched him burst, and I joined him, and he closed his mouth over mine to swallow our screams, sealing them between us like a promise.

kpkpkpkpkp

The next morning started out innocently. He cradled me from behind, nibbling the back of my neck and rousing me from my sleep. It progressed to torture. My eyes rolled to the back of my head and, with a sigh of defeat, I craned my face over my shoulder, accepting his kiss. Unaware until the last second that he'd used his knee to create a gap between my legs.

I started. "What—"

"This," he said, and then locked his body to mine, thrusting up and sheathing himself into my core. In that position, I buried my face in the pillow to stifle the noise and sang for him over and over and over.

When I woke up the second time, he was smiling at me, wide awake and satisfied.

_I would do anything for you. _

The thought came without hindrance. It was the same reason I'd returned to the camp last night. My family and home had always come first. Somehow, Peeta had gotten in the way of that. He'd steered me to a place where everything but him became secondary, and I made the decision to sacrifice whatever I had to, including myself, to keep him safe.

Maybe I'd underestimated him. Maybe we could find a way to fix this. He'd been outwitting Snow for a long time now. He was clever. Maybe there was a way to be free of Seneca and still feed and protect The Seam. Maybe I'd have the chance to put an arrow through Snow's heart—if indeed, he had one.

There was one solution: I had to tell Peeta.

But there was one problem: I had to _tell Peeta_.

"Hi," he mouthed, staring down at me.

I sat up, securing the blanket to my chest. "Hi."

Peeta toyed with my earlobe and grinned like…well, like a boy. "I want to spend the morning with you."

"I have to tell you something."

"I'll teach you archery—"

"We have to talk first."

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes," I answered without thinking.

"Give me a minute. We'll talk when I come back." He rubbed his nose against mine, planted a brief kiss to my lips, and jumped from the pallet, grabbing his pants. The sight of his naked form in broad daylight sucked the breath from me. I hadn't seen much of the world, but there could not be anything sexier than the slant of his hip bones. They pointed to the very center of him. The source of last night's ecstasy. I would never get enough of him.

He noticed me staring and winked, shirtless and energetic and gifting me with an intimate introduction to Peeta In the Morning. Then he disappeared from the tent.

I panicked, wringing my hands so much that my fingers were in danger of falling off. Grabbing his tunic off the floor, I pressed it to my nose, inhaling him, praying he wasn't about to despise me. I draped the tunic over me. The arms hung past my wrists.

Ten finger-chewing minutes must have gone by before he returned, hiding something behind his back and looking more playful than I'd ever seen him. "Turn around," he said.

Taken off guard, I indulged him without objection. He sank onto the bed, lifted me, and straddled me on his lap. "Open your mouth," he murmured.

Again, I did as I was told. Sugar and tartness burst into my mouth, and I swooned, recognizing the taste. My eyes popped open at the little red ball of flavor perched in his fingers. A strawberry. Peeta had a cloth-full of them in his other hand.

"Oh, my God," I said. "Where did you find these?"

"There's a patch not too far from here. I knew you'd like them." He fed me another berry and kissed me as I ate. "They taste better on you," he said, licking the juices off my chin, his mouth beginning its descent down my neck, drugging me.

I arched away from him. "Peeta, wait. This is important."

"Alright." He set the berries beside us and got comfortable, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me flush against him. He tipped his head back to look at me. "What is it?"

I stared at his chest. "I lied."

He froze. Spoke slowly. "About what?"

I shook my head, but it was no use. Grief clogged my throat, preventing me from continuing, and I sensed him realizing the gravity of my silence. A harsh breeze pounded against the tent.

"About what, Katniss?"

The tears came before I could stop them. "I lied to you."

He jerked away, and his hands dropped from my back, landing like rocks on my hips.

"I'm not here to join your gang. I'm here to…to trap you."

"That's not funny," he warned.

"It's not a joke." I gasped between sobs. "My first night here, when you tied me to that tree, Rue turned up."

"No," he said.

"I thought she was there to free me."

"Don't."

"But she came to deliver a message from Snow…"

I told him. The events flooded out of me, and the more I spoke, the faster everything came out, the quicker I wanted to get it over with. To move on from Peeta's confusion and jump right into whatever level of hostility awaited me. When I finished, I felt relief. I'd rid myself of the secrecy, and there was nothing left between us. Except silence.

Then terror. Because Peeta's hand was locked around my throat. "Look at me," he said.

Doing so was my destruction. This wasn't the same Morning Peeta from moments before. His features had coiled, his body folding in on itself, shrinking back to who he'd been when I first met him. Those blue irises latched onto me, rummaging for an excuse for what I'd done but finding nothing, the truth crystallizing in front of him. Those eyes reflected one thing: betrayal.

Groggy, sleepy voices bloomed from outside. I heard Finnick yawn.

Peeta slid from beneath me, stalking to the opposite end of the tent. The muscles of his back slumped, reflecting pain, then shifted, turning jagged as cliffs.

I'd lost him.

"Get out," he said.

"Peeta…" I leapt off the cot and tried to touch him, but he kept batting me away. "Peeta, please. I'm sorry. I—"

"Get. Out!" he roared. Not waiting, he snatched my arm, jostled me across the tent, and flung me across the threshold. I landed in the dirt.

Right beside four pairs of feet. A moment of shock followed as Peeta's band took in the sight of him half-dressed, and me clad in nothing but his tunic, my legs exposed, my hair in a nest due to his eager fingers. Evidence of what we'd done.

Finnick was the first to move. "God's teeth, Peet." He rushed to my side to help me up. "What the devil is wrong with you?"

I wobbled but managed to stand upright. My head hurt. A twitch of remorse flashed across Peeta's face. He hadn't meant to hurt me, but he steeled himself against any sort of atonement. I didn't blame him.

"She's an imposter," he seethed. "She's planning to bring us to Snow. She's nothing but a lying mutt!"

He unveiled my crimes with me standing before his friends, bare and probably a whore in their eyes. My humiliation was absolute.

A harrowing quiet followed his testimonial. Until one by one, the people who'd become my friends, who'd "snuck up on me" as Finnick once said, leveled their gazes on me. Revulsion. Loathing. I'd done irreparable damage.

"You bitch!" Johanna launched herself at me, but Gale caught her just before her claws reached my face.

I bumped into Thresh, but he pushed me away as if venom tainted my blood.

Johanna's arms flayed in my direction. "You lying bitch! I will kill you. I. Will. Kill. You!"

Finnick just eyed me like a doleful, disappointed parent, perhaps remembering our discussion by the fire. "Let her talk." He turned to Peeta. "Peet, everyone has a story. Let her say her peace."

I had the feeling Peeta would rather turn Johanna loose on me. Yet he nodded. They all stared at me. It was too late. They'd made up their minds. But I was already stripped of my dignity, so they must know I had nothing left to lose. I forced myself to stand tall. I would not coward under their judgment or my failure as a human being.

"Snow was going to punish The Seam," I said.

Gale's stance slackened.

I went through the tale again. It tamed them, but the betrayal outweighed my motivations. Peeta didn't waver, disregarding my need to protect my own, to the point where I resented him a little. After what happened between us, did he not feel the slightest bit subdued by my predicament? Had our night together not proven that he meant so much more to me now? Did he think everything with him was just pure fabrication?

I tried to catch his eye, but it would have been easier to catch one of his arrows with my bare hand. Once again, they tied me to a tree.

kpkpkpkpkp

They huddled around the fire pit, talking in low voices as if I weren't there. At least Peeta had had the compassion to let me dress before restraining me, handing me my orange velvet gown from the day of my capture. Johanna had reclaimed her clothes. She let rage get the best of her sense and tossed the garments into the fire, as if indirectly burning me at the stake. Gale spoke rapidly, slapping his knuckles against his palm to enunciate whatever point he tried to make.

Were they thinking along the same lines as I? Now that I'd confessed, I settled a very big part of the responsibility to protect The Seam in their laps. There existed only two options. One, to do nothing. In which case Snow would retaliate against The Seam and, if Peeta's gang merely cast me aside instead of killing me, use me to guide His Majesty to their camp anyway. Or two, do something. In which case failure was likely, and Snow would still retaliate against The Seam. And execute Peeta and his band of thieves.

I couldn't stand them deciding how to handle the situation without including me. The Seam was Gale's home. But it was mine, too.

"It's a trifle hard for me to help you if you won't untie me," I called out.

Four heads looked up, all except the most important one. I willed Peeta to look my way. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

"Who gave you permission to speak?" Johanna said.

"You'll need me in some capacity, I'm sure." I squirmed against the restraints. "Do be aware that the choices are limited. Verily, we shall all come to the same conclusion."

"We'll see about that," Gale snarled.

"Any plan you fancy will require careful orchestration, and it will require my aid. I must be seen to uphold my end of the bargain if The Seam is to be spared. Thus, I am essential. Small but essential."

Johanna slapped the handle of her ax against her palm. "Oh, I gather, I can make you smaller."

"Well, in order to plot, you'll need to concentrate quite hard. And I confess, I'm in the mood to sing. I trust that won't disturb you."

She growled.

"And I won't cease until you fetch me from this tree," I said. Clearing my throat theatrically, I sang as loud as possible, conjuring up words to a Seam song about a hanging tree, which seemed fitting at the moment.

_Are you, Are you__  
__Coming to the tree…_

In spite of himself, Finnick's lips twitched.

_Strange things did happen here…_

Peeta stabbed the ground with an arrow.

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree…_

Once I finished, I started all over again, then swallowed my words as Peeta jumped up and stormed toward me, carrying his signature weapon. I forced myself to continue, my voice quaking.

_Are you, Are you__  
__Coming to the tree…_

He stopped a foot away from me. "Enough, Katniss."

_Strange things did happen here…_

He strung the arrow so fast that I didn't have time to flinch. The tip pressed against my heart. In the backdrop, I saw the rest of his group rise unanimously.

Peeta's arms shook and I sensed a war raging inside him. So I persisted, not caring if our witnesses heard me. "Last night was real. It was greatest thing I've ever done." I swallowed, holding nothing back. "I love y—"

He pressed the arrow into my chest and shook his head, cautioning me to stop, but I refused. "I love you, Peeta."

He kept his face blank, but he relaxed his weapon and untied me.

"What are you doing?" Johanna cried.

"She's invested. This is all about The Seam for her. As long as its welfare is at stake, she's not going anywhere," Peeta replied as I rubbed my wrists. He leaned in and whispered, "Never say those words to me again."

My chest hitched. He couldn't mean that. I opened my mouth to protest when a childlike shriek hit the air. It was then that we noticed Thresh was gone. He returned a second later, strutting out of a bush and dragging a little body behind him.

"Rue!" I ran to my friend and clasped her against me, assuring her that nobody would hurt her.

"Ah. Look what we found. So is this poppet your accomplice?" Finnick asked. "Rather scrawny."

Rue glanced at the foreign faces surrounding us before focusing on me. "Katniss, you told them?"

"I had to."

"Why?" she demanded. "Katniss, did you help these people rob a carriage six days ago?"

My brow furrowed. The king must have heard about that from the aristocrat we'd ambushed. "You knew I had to help out if I wanted to…"

If I wanted Peeta's gang to trust me.

Rue teetered on the verge of tears. Foreboding gripped me. Why was she here?

"Katniss, Snow knows you're smart. He wasn't surprised, but…he heard that you saved Mellark's life."

I was grateful Rue was here to remind this group of that. I hadn't saved Peeta merely to play a role. I'd wanted to protect him.

"So what?" I asked.

"I guess the king wants ensure you don't stray." She broke down again. "I'm sorry." Sniffling, she withdrew a pouch and dropped it in my hand.

My fingers shook as I overturned the contents and let them fall in my palm, revealing a note sealed with His Majesty's royal emblem. A missive from Snow.

_I appreciate your loyalty. This is just in case we've misunderstood each other._

And Prim's Seam bracelet. Spotted with blood.


	9. Chapter 9

_Peeta_

Katniss made a sound like a dying animal, the noise debilitating Peeta long enough for her to rip his bow from his hand before he'd realized it. She made it across the camp, no doubt intending to massacre Snow by herself, when he caught her from behind and drove her into the dirt. Never mind that she hadn't fully learned to shoot yet; she writhed and wailed for him to let her go. The sound splintered through Peeta.

She wasn't thinking straight. Going on a killing rampage would serve no purpose except to get her head chopped off.

"Stop!" he yelled, clasping the sides of her face. "Listen to me!"

She wrestled against him.

"Look at me," he said. "Shhh. All I need you to do is look at me. That's all. Just look."

After a few moments, she gave up and focused on him.

"Good girl," he said, arriving at a few conclusions. The king had commandeered her sister, but he hadn't hurt the girl yet. Though he would if Peeta didn't show himself at the palace tomorrow. The threat on Prim was insurance, a tool to ensure Katniss did as instructed.

Peeta assured her of this in as soothing a voice as he could. When she stopped gasping and her skin tone returned to its normal olive shade, he took her sister's bracelet and wound it gently around her wrist. Then he helped her up and led her to the fire pit. She stared ahead at a lichen-covered tree, using the corded rope decorating the waist of her gown to tie endless knots, a maddened expression on her face. Behind her shock, Peeta saw underlying determination, the look of someone about to commit a disturbing amount of violence.

It made him wince. Katniss—_Lady Everdeen_—needed to learn to contain that fire of hers. That fire that so often turned his brain into mashed potatoes and sent his knees dropping into his ankles.

The rest of the group joined them to conceive a plan, and Peeta schooled himself to focus. His Majesty was hell bent on catching Panem's notorious adversary. They would have to make it look that way. "We'll give Snow what he wants," Peeta said. "Then we'll take it from him again."

Gale nodded. "So who gets caught and who serves as backup?"

"Just me."

"What?" Gale and Finnick said at the same time.

Johanna speared the ground with her ax. "If you think we're going to let you risk your pale neck—"

"We need only one sitting duck," Peeta said. "Snow wants me. Ultimately, I'm the person that counts. End of discussion."

"We have to make it appear as though I've done what the king asked," Lady Everdeen said, abandoning the knot she'd made of her corded belt and returning to herself. "That way, Snow will have no reason to blame The Seam. I'll make it look like I'm on the king's side."

"Yes. Think you can manage that?" Johanna mocked.

Lady Everdeen slapped the ax from Johanna's hand so hard it bounced a few feet away. They both stood, coming nose-to-nose with each other before Gale and Thresh urged them apart.

"Sit down. Now. And listen," Peeta snapped, his patience waning. When they did, he continued. "This is what we're going to do: Once Lady Everdeen leads me into the palace and the guards apprehend me, I'll escape. I'll need Gale and Thresh to help take out the men."

"I can get uniforms for all of you," Rue offered. "I know where the laundresses work. And I can lead you out of the prison. I know the route from when they gave her ladyship and me a tour. I can hide there and wait for you. No one will see me."

Peeta accepted her offer, then dictated the rest of the details. Rue would return to the palace and gather the disguises. In the morning, she'd leave them in a designated spot outside the gate, then wait for the boys in the palace dungeon. Johanna and Finnick would stand post by the stables, once they'd dispersed of the unsuspecting groomsmen. Thresh, who'd managed to steal himself a decent collection of ingredients for tinctures and balms and chemical concoctions, would fuse together a more complex and scientific weapon. Just in case they needed to make a grander exit.

The plan offered no guarantees. This wasn't a mere forest raid on a member of the peerage. This was a fortress with few ways to get out and a lot more soldiers than their group could handle if surrounded. But they had the element of surprise on their side, and his gang had always been going at disappearing acts. The smaller their group, the better.

A gust of wind caused Lady Everdeen's skirt to beat against her legs. She caught Peeta watching the material flutter. He glared and looked away.

Her actions had been a sham. No matter that he understood why she'd gone along with Snow's plan. He would have done the same thing for his friends. She had a conscience, and his gang had grown on her to the point where she took a risk in telling them. He would grant her that.

But she'd also fabricated her feelings, spun a very alluring and very tight web around him. Against his better judgment, he'd allowed yet another girl to prove he was a bona fide imbecile. If she thought her admission of love had been enough to woo him into submission, she had another thing coming. He'd suffered enough buffoonery to last a lifetime. He needed to water down his reaction to her plight, pump up his emotional reserves, and keep his eyes off her goddamn hips. They needed to get tomorrow over with so he would be free of her. And never have to see her again.

kpkpkpkpkp

In the middle of the night, she tried to sneak away. Peeta had woken up to the sound of a tent flapping, and somehow he just knew. Ripping off the blanket, he charged out of his compartment in time to see her disappear into the trees. Groaning and swearing and fuming, he grabbed his bow and went after her.

She snaked through the underbrush, her braid bouncing. Something on her hip flashed under the moonlight—Thresh's knife. From a distance, she looked like an armed runaway fairy.

She stopped, maybe trying to figure out which way to go, seeing as she didn't know the way to the palace from here. Peeta shot an arrow that whizzed through the hollow over her shoulder and hit a tree trunk. It was an unnecessary and cocky move—he could have just seized her arm—but he couldn't resist.

Lady Everdeen whipped around.

"Sleep walking?" he asked.

Embarrassment and animosity flitted across her features. She tried to run, but he grabbed her, pulled so hard she bounced against his chest. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "We have a plan. We made a plan, Kat—Lady Everdeen. Is it at all possible for you to stick to it?"

"Let me go, Peeta," she snarled.

"I can't."

She tried to rip her arm from his grasp, but he held fast, permitting her time to get the pent-up anger out of her system until, defeated, she stopped. And then she gave him a look of unparalleled despair. With a sigh, Peeta did the one thing he knew he shouldn't. He gathered her to him and enclosed his arms around her. She hugged him back, releasing shaky breaths against his neck.

"I'm scared," she admitted, her voice muffled, like that was the only way she could admit a weakness. "I want to hunt him down myself and destroy him. I don't want any of you involved."

"I told you, Snow is not going to hurt Prim. And you wouldn't breach the stronghold on your own. You could put your sister in more danger. Don't worry about the rest of us."

"It's my fault."

"Oh, be quiet."

She tipped her head to look at him, far too sweetly for his taste. This was the moment to let go.

Peeta wasn't fast enough. Her fingers stole up and ran across his lips, and he stilled, and then his lids shuttered closed. Unbidden, the recollection of those same fingers digging into his sweaty back invaded his memory. If he let so much as a single flash of their passionate night together cement in his mind, he would do something stupid like forgive her.

Nevertheless, she trapped him, planting kisses along his jaw while his breaths grew shallow. As always, his body responded to her the way it wasn't supposed to. Swift and wild. He clamped his mouth shut lest his desire make itself known, yet a groan escaped the back of his throat when her lips latched onto his earlobe, drawing it into the wet heat of her mouth.

The instant she moved in to kiss him fully, Peeta reared back. "Don't."

"I can't help it," she whispered. "And neither can you."

That much was undeniable. One thing she couldn't have feigned last night was the arch of her back as he claimed her. When it came to physical hunger, their bodies couldn't be more compatible. The problem was she'd convinced him their bond stretched beyond that.

"This is real," she said. "I didn't plan for it to happen."

"You must know I can't believe that."

"Look at what I gambled in order to tell you the truth."

"That was your conscience talking. Not love."

She flinched. "Was my conscience talking when you had me treed? I had nothing left to lose."

True, but that had been a moment when she was at the mercy of their assistance. Her confession must have been a last-ditch effort to make sure he helped her. She'd grown desperate and tapped into his tender side. His very weak spot.

"You wanted to be set free, didn't you?" he countered.

She reeled away from him. "How dare you tell me how I feel."

"How dare you tell me what I _should_ feel."

"You're so afraid of being hurt that you're using this as an excuse to pull away."

That made Peeta furious—before her, he rarely got so mad. Why was it that whenever he sought to make sense of their connection, no answer seemed right or wrong? Even now, he doubted himself. For he couldn't explain why she insisted upon keeping up an emotional farce. It only confounded him more.

He wiped his palms over his face and muttered, "We're talking in circles."

"Because you're not listening to me—"

"No, I'm not afraid of being hurt because it's _already happened_! You've already done it, Katniss!"

His voice boomed into the space between them. She stepped further back, looking flustered and, yes, guilty.

"You had no choice with your family and your home. You did what you had to, I know that," he said. "But you did have a choice in _how_ you got close to me. You knew what you were doing. You knew where this was going. And you knew where it would leave me. You could have earned my trust in other ways. You didn't have to go after my heart! You could have spared me that!"

"I'm not _her_," she insisted.

Peeta's blood turned to ice. Did he hear her correctly?

"Finnick told you...about Delly. You knew all this time," he concluded, then laughed, although none of this was funny. Bitterness dulled his laughter. "Well, that makes what you did even worse."

He listened to her feet shuffle over the leaves on the forest bed. "That night when I sang for you and your friends. I didn't do it because Thresh asked me to. I didn't because I wanted you to hear me. Only you."

He didn't know what she meant by that, or how to respond.

"You're right," she said. "I shouldn't have touched you."

Peeta swiped Thresh's blade from her hip and thrust it into his boot, no longer concerned that she would make an impromptu dash for the palace. He removed the Seam bracelet hanging off the waist of his pants, then took her hand and watched her eyes widen as he dropped the leather token into her palm. And then walked away.

kpkpkpkpkp

The stone walls of the castle loomed above Peeta and Lady Everdeen, their gray spires stabbing the heavens and blending in with the overcast sky. At the front gate, the scents of horse dung and overripe fruits inundated his senses. An elderly man pushed past them, coughing and swatting away flies that seemed to be everywhere. Guards stood post outside, stopping carts to check their contents before bidding them entrance. Somewhere nearby, a mule brayed.

Dressed in the royal garb Rue had managed to acquire for them, his gang flanked Peeta and Lady Everdeen, pretending to detain them. They glided across the drawbridge and through the gatehouse with no problem. According to Rue, Snow expected Lady Everdeen to lead Peeta through the main thoroughfare, then across the market in the courtyard, and head toward the keep. Once there, he could expect a quick seizure.

Peeta kept his head down, his features concealed by the hood. Thresh was the largest of them all, so he concealed the legendary bow beneath his disguise. They'd barely passed a falconer's post and already Peeta itched for his weapon. He felt lighter without it, and not in a good way. But if he were to get caught armed, it might rouse suspicion that he'd anticipated an ambush.

Inside the bailey, Finnick and Johanna headed for the stables, while Gale and Thresh disappeared into the crowd, supplied with Lady Everdeen's directions to the dungeon. She and Peeta threaded through the courtyard mass. The clang of metal coming from the blacksmith's station made her jump. She was more terrified than she let on.

He leaned toward her. "It will be over soon."

She whispered, "When you get out of here, you'll have to move your camp. Snow will expect me to lead him to you."

"I know."

"Please make it out of there. And…" Her voice wobbled. "I won't have another chance. So thank you for the hunting lesson."

He grinned to himself because he never knew what to expect from her—including her choice of parting words. Although she'd sounded like she wanted to say more.

They would not see one another after this. The knowledge sliced him up.

People bustled around, unaware, hungry, tired. At the keep's threshold, Peeta and Lady Everdeen began their performance. They glanced around cautiously to seem as though she'd secretly brought him here, intending to steal riches that didn't exist. Ever-so-subtly, Lady Everdeen lifted her head, offering the guards a clear view of her face beneath her cloak. The men tensed. They'd been instructed to look out for her.

She and Peeta continued, moving on as though to sneak toward the back entrance. He kept his face straight and schooled himself not to let his instincts take over. Then he felt a pair of burly hands grab him.

"You!" the man roared, swinging Peeta around like a ragdoll. Good. The bigger he was, the more realistic the arrest, because there was no way he could beat this man. Thresh would have to take him later.

Lady Everdeen played the flustered maiden, scampering backward and pointing. "This is him! Peeta Mellark! Don't let him go!"

Chaos ensued without Peeta having to do much but pretend-struggle and scowl. A larger crowd gathered, yelping and shoving at each other to get a glimpse of the notorious legend. Many of the faces he recognized, because he'd fed and stole for them. They gazed at the scene in wonder and pity and sorrow. Their voices, along with his name, flared throughout the bailey like a brushfire.

"My, my. Peeta Mellark," the burly guard snarled, then let his voice carry through the air. "Look what we have, ladies and gentleman. Right under our noses."

Peeta spoke through clenched teeth. "Value that nose now, because it won't be in one piece when I—"

The guard whacked Peeta on the backs of his legs with a club. He wailed and fell to his knees. His head hung forward for a second before the guard yanked him to his feet again, fisted his hair, and pointed a knife at his throat.

He heard Lady Everdeen shriek. Real or not real?

"No!" she cried.

Real.

Then she altered her voice to sound cold. "N-no. No, you blockheads. Not here. The king orders. He's to be locked up first. Now, go on!"

The burly guard announced loud and clear. "Snow will have Peeta Mellark on the rack for all to see come morning. He's fixing to have himself a nice, proper show."

Before they lugged Peeta away, he managed one final glance at Katniss and knew it was a mistake. Her gray eyes blinked with remorse and determination and _Farewell_.

The guard and his partner lugged Peeta across the courtyard to the east end of the bailey and into a building loaded with tunnels and corridors. They winded down a stairwell lit by torches and tainted with the stench of blood. Someone's howl echoed. Peeta's own legs seared with pain.

As of now, Lady Everdeen should be feigning distress and weariness over her captivity, letting herself be escorted to her chamber. The guards seemed to be enjoying their moment of triumph as they opened his cell, which groaned on its rusty hinges like a ghost and led to a wall covered in chains.

"In you go," the burly one said. Before Thresh attacked him from behind, swiping the man's club and knocking him out with it.

Gale battled with the second guard, the two of them grunting and catapulting to the floor where they rolled around. The man landed on top of Gale, ready to slash open his neck when Peeta wrapped his arms around the guard's middle, hoisted him up, and flung him across the space. As the man lumbered to his feet, Peeta spun and backhanded him across the face, boxing him down again. Out cold.

"Damn you, I had him," Gale grunted as Peeta helped him up. "Why don't you ever just stick to your bow tricks?"

A faint gasp sent them pivoting. Rue peeked her head from around the corner. "Hi."

Peeta smiled. Impressively quiet, this one.

Thresh and Gale tossed the unconscious and bleeding guards into the cell, stole their keys, and locked the door. Thresh tossed Peeta his bow and arrow.

Gale wiped his hands. "You would think they'd have a large entourage to surround Peeta Mellark."

"If Snow used more men to lead one figure away, it would have made his army look weak," Peeta pointed out.

He spoke too soon. A throng of shouts rolled down the tunnel. More guards.

Rue whirled and pointed down an ominous corridor. "That way. It will take you up to the servants' kitchen and then the mess hall. There's a back door that leads outside and down to the stables. You can get out through the east gate. It'll take you over the moat and then you're not far from the woods."

Peeta tousled her hair. "You're brave."

"She loves you."

He frowned. The battle cries grew louder. "Why would you say that?"

"Why would you doubt it?" she asked, then shrugged. "This morning, she told me she sang for you. Katniss never sings for people. She hasn't since her mother left."

He let this information sink in and then told Rue to hide. She smirked, as if to tell him not to worry about her.

The boys took off. Gale and Thresh's royal guard uniforms prevented them from being noticed through the mess hall. It was when they barreled through the back door that things got more complicated. A throng of warriors surged toward them, brandishing swords. Peeta halted at the top of the stairs, whipped out a handful of arrows, and slid sideways down the banister while shooting in rapid succession, pelting soldiers one by one until he landed at the bottom. Three horses plowed toward them, commanded by Finnick and Johanna.

Gale hopped behind Johanna and kissed her cheek. Finnick pulled Peeta up onto his horse. Thresh took the third steed, ripped a tightly packed ball from his pocket, and threw it at the guards. It exploded and sent a massive cloud of thick dust into the air. Blinded, their attackers staggered around before, breathing in the alchemical mixture, they passed out.

Galloping across the bailey, Peeta aimed up and fired, striking a pair of guards grappling to lower the portcullis, enabling his gang to clear the east gate. As they raced over the hillside and dodged arrows swarming them from the turrets, Peeta thought of that long, dark braid. He wished he could have touched it one more time. Then he let that desire go, along with his last arrow.


	10. Chapter 10

_Katniss_

In the days that followed, Snow launched a brutal campaign to find Peeta and his gang, but to no avail. Rue and I led His Majesty to the campsite, but it had been cleared out. The only thing left were the makeshift oven, where Peeta had baked his bread, and the fire pit where we'd all sang and danced together. Where Peeta had asked me if he could have me.

Snow devoted most of his time to pursuing Peeta, neglecting his other duties as Panem's monarch. He interrogated me for information, anything that would help him track his enemy. It had been painful to answer the king's questions. Aside from what kind of weapons they used, I had little pertinent knowledge to aid him. All I'd done while in captivity was hunt and swim and fight and rob a carriage. And fall in love.

The one significant clue I'd kept to myself was the mockingbird call the group used to send messages to each other through the forest. I'd heard it once when Thresh had been on lookout—Peeta had explained it to me later.

When His Majesty no longer had use for me, he gave me back my sister. The guards escorted her to my chamber, and she pushed past them and sprinted into my arms. "Katniss!"

"Prim!" I clung to her so tight, furious about the dark circles under her eyes and the way she trembled. She'd been terrified and alone.

We crept into my bed. Amid the glow of candlelight, I stroked her fine blond hair, breathed in her scent, and relished the feeling of her willowy arms around me. She wept and told me the whole story, how she'd been taken from home and brought here, how she'd been confined to a room in another part of the palace. The only indication that she'd been harmed was the bandage on her hand. They'd cut off her bracelet and sliced her palm in order to stain it with blood as a warning to me.

Our father was on his way to Panem. Initially, he'd been threatened not to come to the palace if he wanted his daughters to live. Now that I wasn't an asset for Snow beyond my role as Seneca's fiancé, the king had requested my father join us in the castle until the wedding. When Prim informed me of this, my heart clenched. I'd hoped to escort her to The Seam. To give myself space before the nuptials, which would take place in a fortnight.

Apparently, Snow had other plans. I supposed that he wanted to keep me here in case new developments sprouted regarding the hunt for Peeta. Did His Majesty want my family nearby in order to ensure my cooperation? Did that mean the king doubted my allegiance?

With my sister tucked in my arms, I forced myself not to dwell on this, instead taking solace in her silvery voice.

"Was it scary?" she asked when I told her the story of Peeta's band of thieves.

"At first," I answered.

"Did they hurt you? Was the Mellark boy cruel?" Before I could answer, the color drained from her cheeks. I could tell her imagination had begun to travel down more private terrain. "Oh, Kat, did he...did he..." She frowned. "You're blushing."

"It's of no consequence," I said, tapping my finger against her nose.

She wiggled away from me to get a better look at my face. I hated it whenever she stared at me like that. It rendered me powerless to conceal truths I might wish to protect. I turned around, but she simply crawled over me like a bug. "Katniss, you didn't!"

"I—"

Prim slapped my pillow. "You did! Katniss, wherefore? He's a criminal, a cutpurse, and you let..." She tilted her head at me, registering something anew. "Do you care about him?"

I swallowed. "He's an easy boy to care for."

She hesitated. "So easy?"

"Dreadfully thus."

I spoke of our friendship and my growing fondness for him. My sister's mood shifted yet again. This time, to intrigue. "Is he handsome?"

My account would never do Peeta justice, but I endeavored. Prim must have been satisfied because she sighed and ran a finger over the bedspread. "You miss him."

"It's not to be. He's safe. You're safe. That's all that matters."

"I wish I could unbreak your heart."

"Your very existence is a magnificent help with that," I laughed.

"It's not fair for you to marry Seneca when your heart is occupied. Tell me you won't mourn this. Even if it's from a distance, and being promised to another, you shouldn't believe Peeta has cast you aside. This Delly girl you spoke of wounded him so greatly that it's tainting his judgment. If he's smart enough to outwit Snow, he's smart enough to understand matters of the heart."

"No one is ever smart enough to understand matters of the heart. One moment, I was determined to protect you. The next..." Shame prevented me from speaking to her face. "The next, I forsook your safety and chose his instead."

"Don't say that. Don't blame yourself," Prim said. "This wasn't a choice between me and him. You had faith in finding a solution together, that's why you told him. I don't feel any less important, and I don't expect you to love me more than anyone in this world."

"I expect it," I said.

"You expect too much. You're passionate, Katniss. You will never be able to organize your feelings to your satisfaction. You always fail to identify your own emotions until they've been stuck to you for a while."

Mayhap she was right. Over the course of one glorious night, Peeta had seized me. How swiftly my concerns had changed. He'd affected my heart the way wine affected the senses: subtly, languidly, and then immediately. In one fell swoop. Without giving me time to prepare myself. I would never understand it.

Prim said, "In time, he will come to understand you meant no ill-will. I'm sure he thinks of you often. Let that be a comfort."

"I'll try," I lied, and then coaxed her to sleep.

Time passed, but I received no news of Peeta. No robberies. Perhaps he was waiting until Snow scaled back on his search. Believing Peeta hadn't forgiven me was easier than figuring he'd come to the sense Prim had argued over. I didn't want to think of him missing me. I wanted him to move on. Because then I'd have no further capacity to hurt him, especially with my wedding approaching.

At night, I thought of him, and I touched myself, crying out his name as release washed over me. And then I cried for real until I fell asleep.

My happiest days were spent taking walks with Prim. We reunited with our father, the three of us holding court for hours. I endured Effie's tutelage. She kept warning me not to "raise brouhaha" in the castle, as if she expected me to commit a faux-pas at every corner. I rejoiced when Sheriff Abernathy arrived for the festivities, particularly because I knew the "Unsavory Tosspot," as Effie called him, would put my chaperone in a sour mood. The first place the sheriff wanted a tour of was the wine cellar.

I found myself taking up foreign activities. I interviewed the gamekeepers about how they did their job, pretending that my interest was merely due to the fact that I wanted to be a knowledgeable mistress, that it was my duty as Seneca's betrothed to know how the palace worked. When really, I learn about wild animals and hunting.

I practiced archery. At first, a heavily-freckled instructor was hired for me, but he lost patience with my refusal to listen. Which was only because I'd already lost patience with his arrogance. He kept wiping his brow with a handkerchief and having fits about everything I did. It wasn't my fault that that stableman had gotten in the way. He'd been hiding behind a bush and relieving himself. How was I supposed to know he'd been there? Besides, he was recovering fine.

The longer I was confined to the palace, the more I just wanted to shoot something. I wasn't interested in technique as much as _feeling_ the weapon. It turned out, I didn't need my instructor, after all. Remembering the way Peeta had positioned my fingers and the words he'd whispered, my aim grew more and more promising. The arrow's tip stopped piercing my hand once I'd perfected my grip. The first time I hit my mark, Prim and I jumped up and down and squealed. My practice increased tenfold after that.

Seneca presented me with a new engagement ring. Another emerald. I removed it when I practiced with my bow and arrow.

The prince crossed the gardens to visit me during an early shooting session. His lanky form crossed the manicured lawn, raven black hair slicked behind his ears. It didn't matter that summer had peaked. For his face, flat and wide as a dinner plate, always looked cold to me. He hid his conventional good-looks behind a comical-looking beard. When he reached me, he took both my hands and kissed them, surveying my green gown with appreciation. A motif of leaf vine embroidery, in a lighter shade of green, adorned the bell sleeves and scooped bodice. It was my favorite dress. It reminded me of the woods.

I resisted the urge to retract my fingers. Not only because Seneca repelled me, but because I wanted to massage my stomach. It was hurting again. It had been since breakfast, when Cook had fed us eggs and a cup of berries I'd never tasted before.

"Another morning of sport?" he asked. "Your occupations have been rather a surprise, my dear."

The prince was observant. None of these things had formally been my fancy. I'd changed. He'd noticed.

"Being here has aroused the inquisitive side in me," I said, hoping to flatter him.

It was the wrong answer, because he was indeed flattered. Too much so. And coming far too close to me. He fingered a lock of hair that had escaped from the braided bun at the nape of my neck, which Rue had expertly fashioned to resemble a blossoming flower.

"Mmm," he said, icy eyes fixing on my cleavage. "Arousal is a promising start to our happiness. I'll endeavor to make a study out of you then. In other ways."

I stepped back and aimed an arrow at him. "You'll have to catch me first."

I'd intended to make it look like I was teasing. But suddenly, I found myself wanting to release the arrow. Seneca studied my expression, which should have been coy and flirtatious. Instead, I was fully aware how dead serious I looked. He seemed shocked for a moment. Then he burst out laughing. "My dear, I cannot wait to rob you of that scowl."

I lowered my weapon and fake-laughed, relishing how close I'd come to puncturing his lung.

My stomach cramps got worse. To Prim's horror, I began spotting blood between my legs. I hadn't been expecting my monthly flux, so a physician was called to examine me. I had no choice but to expose myself to him, praying he would say nothing about the fact that my virtue was no longer intact. To my everlasting relief, I wasn't carrying a child. The doctor ordered me to rest, claiming I was under stress because of the wedding.

That evening, Snow called for me. This was an event. He hadn't requested my presence in weeks. Hope and fear mingled inside me that he'd learned something new regarding Peeta's whereabouts. I smoothed the folds of my gown and crept into the royal suite.

"Ahhh, the illustrious Lady Everdeen." Snow rose from his seat, his hair always taking me off guard, so glaringly white it looked like an experiment. He cut a magnificent figure for his age and dwarfed me with his size.

I sank into a curtsy. "Your Majesty wished to see me?"

He beckoned me to sit across from him. Tea had been set out. Returning to his chair, he crossed his legs in a manner that felt menacing to me. I wasn't thirsty, but I drank all the same. The tea tasted bitter.

"I heard you were unwell today. I was concerned."

"Your Majesty is very kind. I'm better now."

"I also called you here to say we're mitigating our search for Mellark for the time being. I'm exhausting my resources, and the boy is exhausting me with his evasiveness. I hope that doesn't disappoint you. I know he offended you most severely. But the most we've gathered is one report indicating a weapons convoy was attacked a few days ago on the main road. The assailants disappeared, along with a generous supply of arrows."

I sipped to hide my grin.

"So it seems the little fellow is beginning to take chances again. All the same, I'd prefer to pull back, open a door, make him comfortable to start thieving again, to the point where he lets his guard down. We'll monitor the reports, see if he reveals a pattern. That sort of thing. To my great annoyance, he requires more tact and patience." The king leaned back and laced his fingers together. "If I didn't want his head on a pike, I'd request he oversee my armed forces. I've never known such a gifted vagrant. Witnesses testified to his speed and grace as though they'd never seen a likeness. I keep thinking how Mellark slipped so easily from my grasp even after being apprehended. Although his little band of cutpurses seemed to be well-positioned to help him escape...and well outfitted. It's as if he was expecting to get caught." Snow eyed me. "Why would he think that?"

I rubbed my palms against my lap. When I first returned to the palace, Snow had questioned me about the uniforms Peeta's gang had been seen wearing. I mentioned that they'd already owned stolen uniforms but had never needed to use them before. That they'd come with us and stationed themselves in other areas of the bailey just in case we got caught. And when they saw Peeta get taken, they'd surged into action. I didn't give many details, figuring that would appear more honest.

Again, I settled on a less lucid answer. "It's hard to guess the workings of an outlaw's mind, sire."

"Of course. And you couldn't analyze his escape, nor the spectacle it caused, because once we detained him, you disappeared. According to your lady's maid, you fainted and were carried to your chamber."

There was nothing to say to that.

"How do you like your bridal gown?"

I choked on my tea. The change of topic alerted me further. He was trying to imbalance me by shifting direction unexpectedly. Why? Was it to gauge an uncensored reaction?

"It's beautiful, sire," I said.

I hated my dress.

"I've noticed you taking up archery as of late. What influenced you?"

"Deadly sports intrigue me."

He chuckled. "It's a shame about the wedding night."

"Your Majesty?"

Snow leaned forward, plucked a rose from the vase on the tea tray, and sniffed. "I trust you heard me, my lady." He flung the rose to the side. "Do you know of the nightlock berry, Lady Everdeen?" Without letting me answer, he continued. "When consumed, it creates pains in the stomach and bleeding. It's not dangerous, but it has just enough potency to cause discomfort. I believe those were the berries you ate this morning."

The teacup clattered in my hand. I set it down.

"My physician examined you closely."

I fought to steady my breathing.

"May I ask who the lucky man was?"

Snow had been suspecting me. It came together now. He'd spent the last few weeks observing me, inventorying my behavior, calculating my all my actions. I'd been fed those berries on purpose. The king had orchestrated that doctor's examination. I'd been careless.

He was repulsive.

"Sire, I—"

"Either you're a more conniving creature than even I gave you credit for, or you allowed yourself to get swept away by a pair of very skilled archer's hands. Alas, Lady Everdeen. My son will be disappointed, but as you know, I'd divined that we had an unspoken agreement not to lie to each other. Pity."

The next thing I knew, a hard object rammed into the side of my head, and I was dragged out of the room.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Peeta_

He trudged out of the woods and caught the tail-end of Gale and Johanna's fight. Thresh sat in the corner and massaged his temples, signaling they'd been at it for a while.

"I'm telling you, he's not fine. He hasn't been fine for weeks," Gale protested.

"You're being dramatic."

"I don't call not having a decent catch in ages dramatic, Jo. He isn't shooting straight and—"

Peeta threw down a pile of squirrels at the fire pit to get his friends' attention. He may have been behaving despondent of late, but criticizing his hunting skills was where he drew the line.

Johanna and Gale paused, burdening Peeta with the same looks of apprehension and weariness his band had perfected since their escape from the palace. It was as if they expected him to ignite at any moment. He'd only hit Finnick that one time—Peeta failed to remember what the argument had been about. Finnick was still cross at him.

They'd moved their camp the minute they'd returned, disregarding whatever their horses couldn't carry. They'd stayed on the move for weeks while Snow sniffed them down, only now deeming it secure enough to establish a new post in the woods. Peeta had sacrificed his stock of arrows in the escape, and he'd had to craft alternative ones from branches. They'd only been sufficient to hunt. For real bows, he and his gang had intercepted a weapons convoy four days ago. After so long without proper arrows, his new collection revived him.

Still, they lacked a great deal of supplies. Peeta missed being near the lake—a crucial source of water. He also missed his outdoor oven. Crude as it had been, it had taken an eternity to build. And baking always eased his woes.

Gale rushed a hand through his hair. "Squirrel. Again."

Peeta wrinkled his nose. He flung his arrow pack to the ground with such force that it sent their fire wood pile toppling over. "Who are you to complain?" he yelled. "We're beggars, not choosers. We're peasants living slightly better than other peasants. We don't have a castle to provide whatever fare we fancy. We're nothing like them, so eat your damn meal and shut up!"

His friends stared at him.

Gale lifted his palms in surrender. "I only meant—"

"I'm not finished," Peeta snapped.

"I take it breakfast has arrived?" Finnick asked, emerging from his tent and wiping his eyes.

"It's not morning, Finn. It's afternoon," Johanna said.

"Truly?"

It had come out of nowhere. The talk of hunting had led to thoughts of food, to thoughts of real food, to thoughts of banquets of food, to thoughts of celebrations, to thoughts of weddings. One in particular.

Peeta still wasn't used to having a temper—no thanks to Lady Everdeen—so he paced, hoping to shake it off. "I'm sick and tired of being treated like I'll break. I'm not glass!"

"We know, Peet," Finnick said, frowning.

"I'm fine, dammit."

Johanna strode over to Peeta, grabbed his chin, and made him face her. She examined his features and then groaned. "Gale's right. It wasn't a tryst for you, and you're not getting better."

Peeta slapped her hand away.

"You fell in love with her."

"I didn't—"

"You're in love with her." Johanna pulled on her hair. "You spectacular idiot! Why? After what she did, how could you be so stupid?"

Peeta sought to deny it when Thresh leapt from his seat. "Something's wrong," he said.

The band turned to see Rue loitering on the fringes of their camp. She resembled a wingless bird, stricken and ready to collapse. "Peeta," she whimpered. "You have to help. Please."

In an unusually nurturing move for her, Johanna sat the girl by the pit and brought her a canteen of water. The sight poisoned Peeta with trepidation. "Help with what, Rue?"

"It's Lady Everdeen."

It wasn't Rue who'd spoken. The gang stood to attention, grabbing their weapons and leveling them at the red-nosed man who halted a few feet away. An older man who seemed not to care a fig about their battle stance. Indeed, it was clear they amused him.

"Armed children," he observed in a sloppy voice. "Sweeting, that ax is far too big for you."

The ax flew past his head and lodged into a branch. "Try me," Johanna sneered.

"Well, then. Do I actually have some fighters here?" he asked.

"He's with me," Rue said. "He's from The Seam."

"Well, boy," the man said to Gale. "Do you not recognize me? I caught you trying to steal one of my geese when you were ten. Then years later, I nabbed your foolish hide for poaching."

"Sheriff Abernathy," Gale said, lowering his sword.

"Pleasure to know I leave an impression. You have anything stronger than water? It's been a long day."

"Peeta, he's a friend of Lady Everdeen," Gale said.

Peeta relaxed his bow. The rest of the group followed suit.

"So you're the strapping lad what stole her ladyship's maidenhead, eh? You must be quiet a good thief. Never thought she'd give that up, not even to that potpie-faced fiancé of hers."

"Haymitch," Rue pleaded. "Please, just tell them."

Evidently, the man had a tendency to digress even in times of peril. His face turned grim. "Snow knows what Lady Everdeen did for you. She's been charged with treason and is set to be taken to the executioner's block at dawn."

It wasn't until his bow hit the ground that Peeta realized he'd dropped it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Musical inspiration: "Betrayal and Desolation" by James Horner (instrumental).  
**

* * *

_Peeta_

A chorus of overlapping voices flooded his ears, but he heard none of what the people around him said. Their words bubbled and dissolved, impossible to focus on, much less understand.

Katniss. Her name was all he thought, felt, heard.

Peeta's body strung itself as tight as his bow. His bow, which he swiped off the ground, along with his arrows. His bow, which he choked with his fist as he strode across the camp, passing the voices, then launching into a run, legs cutting across the ground, arms pumping until he reached his horse. Unknotting the reigns, he leapt onto the animal's back, steered the creature around, and dug his heels into its sides, sending them catapulting through the trees.

The voices calling his name, shouting for him, trailed behind. His name, which didn't matter anymore, which faded from his memory. He wasn't Peeta. He wasn't Mellark. He was _her_. All of _her_. Every part of him was _her_.

The wind whipped his hood against his back, but he wasn't going fast enough, not enough, not enough. When he reached the main road, he leaned forward, bringing his chest closer to the horse, and snapped the reigns, increasing momentum. The steed plowed down the path, kicking up leaves and puffing thickly. A vision of Snow's wrinkling face and pasty hair poisoned Peeta's mind, and he pursued that image.

_I will kill you._

Crashing out of the forest, Peeta eased up, slowing the horse from a gallop to a cantor along the boundary of the woods. The castle's battlements rose over the hills in the distance, their grated edges reminding him of teeth. He trained his gaze on the single red flag slapping the current above the keep, announcing to the whole of Panem a public execution scheduled for the following morning. Red as a rose. Red as blood.

Peeta jumped off the animal, tethered it to a tree, and set out across the high grasses.

Something jerked on his hood and sent him flying back and landing on the ground. Thresh's dark eyes stared down at him, followed by a number of other frantic, angry, heavily-breathing faces. Their horses huffed in the background, secured next to his own.

It took Thresh, Gale, and Finnick to hold Peeta down.

Finnick clamped a hand over Peeta's mouth to silence him. "Peet, this isn't you. See to reason. Don't let Snow hijack your sense."

"Damn right it isn't him. This is what's left of him," Johanna said. "As if allowing that wench to bewitch him hasn't done enough, now we have to exorcise him from his stupidity and temper_—both_ of which he never had before meeting her. I want my blond-haired, blue-eyed, stocky idol back, and I want him back now."

Gale didn't care for that comment. "I thought I was your idol."

"You're my lover. That's more important. I don't suppose we can talk him out of saving her?"

Peeta growled into Finnick's hand.

"No," Rue cried. "Lady Everdeen is going to be hanged. Don't any of you care?"

"I care about Peeta, not that wench. She broke his heart. All I want to do is break her face."

"Hellfire, Johanna, she doesn't deserve to die," Gale hissed. "Don't push me on this. We're helping."

"Don't let the lad go until his eyes have ceased dilating," the older man called Abernathy said. He and Rue must have hitched a ride with Peeta's friends in their pursuit of him.

Just then, a small hand touched Peeta's, commanding his attention. Rue smiled sadly at him and placed a strip of leather into his palm. Katniss's bracelet.

"I took it from her room," Rue said. "I thought you'd want it."

He closed his fingers around the bracelet. It's soft, woven texture—so much like her braid—beat the mania out of him. His head fell against the ground. They were right. This wasn't him. What had he been doing? What was he expecting to accomplish on his own? He needed his friends. He had to calm down. This was not the way leaders behaved. They didn't let fury cloud their vision. They didn't leave their most trusted companions behind. Peeta Mellark had never done that, and he wouldn't now.

"Take care, Peet," Finnick said. "It's clear what Snow's planning."

Yes, it was. Snow knew that Peeta was going to find out about the execution. The king expected him to show up and try to save Katniss. If Peeta stormed the palace too soon, or did anything until His Majesty stopped believing he was coming, Peeta would lose the upper hand. He would have to wait until it appeared as though he wasn't taking the bait. Which meant he'd have to endure to the final second, right before they killed Katniss.

"He's making that face. He's thinking," Gale said.

Finnick lifted his palm, allowing Peeta to speak. "You can let me go now. I won't fight." They released him, and he sat up, brushing himself off and leveling Johanna with a glare. "You mean as much to me as anyone in this gang. I want you with us, but I also want your tongue in check or I will grind it into the floor when this is over."

Johanna's expression wavered, then softened petulantly. "I love you. And I hate that she hurt you."

He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to him, pressing their foreheads together, remembering the first time he met her, the first time she made Gale laugh. "Thank you for that, but I can't do this without you."

Johanna swallowed and whispered, "Alright."

They broke apart.

"Well boy," Abernathy said. "You better not have another relapse once you get into the palace. I have a right mind not to believe a thing I heard about you. I'm hoping you prove me wrong."

Peeta nodded. "As am I, Abernathy."

"Bah. Don't call me that. I'm no minion. I go by Haymitch and nothing else. I'll tell you right now, your sweeting isn't going to be happy you turned out. She doesn't want to put you in danger. If she finds out, she might do something foolish and downright reckless like jump into that noose faster than you can shoot. So keep out of her line of vision. I'm curious, boy. How many lifetimes would you have to lead to deserve her? Or her you?"

"Right now, we only have one."

"Good answer. So make it count and stay alive."

Peeta had the feeling that if they'd met in different circumstances, Haymitch would be providing more than his share of tips regarding Katniss. The man understood her well. "Tell me what you know, Haymitch."

The older man gave them an account of the king's doubts about Katniss. It grieved Peeta to hear how Snow had poisoned her in order to have her medically examined. His Majesty might have assumed she was taken advantage of, having initially been a captive. However, Snow had already been suspicious about her role in the escape, and she would have never helped a man who'd defiled her. By the time the physician was called in, it was easy for the king to guess she'd been a willing participant in the loss of her virginity. The way she'd conducted herself during his final interview with her solidified it for him. He ordered Katniss to be taken to a cell to await punishment, and her family was expected to watch. Snow would have his public show, after all.

"They're not revealing the intimacies of Lady Everdeen's conduct to the world, only that she helped you get away," Haymitch said. "That peacock, Seneca, is not eager to be labeled a cuckold before he's even been labeled a husband. He'd rather save face. The only reason I know about the scandal is I overheard Lady Primrose telling Rue."

Peeta hated that anyone besides himself and Katniss knew of their lovemaking at all. Their relationship wasn't for public consumption. But he didn't hold it against her that she'd confessed the details to her sister or Rue. They'd been there for her when he could not.

"Wait. By the by, how did you find our new camp?" Peeta asked the small girl.

She blinked. "I'm Rue," she answered, as if that explained everything.

"This sprite can find anyone. If Snow had employed her, you would all be in the dungeon by now," Haymitch said.

Peeta knew that his old self would have chuckled at this and then said something charming to Rue. He missed that part of himself. He wanted it back.

The group returned to their camp and tossed ideas back and forth until they'd fully choreographed a rescue. Halfway through the night, they dressed in the royal guard uniforms from their escape—it had been worth it to keep those—and hustled through the high grasses toward the palace. Peeta knelt and strung his bow, aiming up at the men standing post along the battlements. He would have to accomplish the impossible numerous times over. He'd have to locate the chinks in their armor and hit them quietly, in the dark, once they were close enough to the edge of the walkway but not too close, as he couldn't have soldiers toppling over and splashing into the moat. But if there was one thing that had never failed him, it was his gift of sight. Since he could remember, he'd always been able to see things from a distance that many had deemed impossible to see. It had scared him as a child, but now he was grateful for it.

A metallic taste infested into Peeta's mouth. Just as in the escape, he was going to have to kill people. He'd always tried to avoid this, but there was no chance to succeed otherwise. Not against Panem's stronghold. And yet. He'd been having nightmares about the last men he'd taken down, their families, their children. He feared these next hours would turn him into someone he wasn't, someone who caused pain without remorse. Another piece in Snow's game.

He needed to rise from this intact, recognizable. If not, he would lose everything.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to each man patrolling the wall, watching as they fell under the tips of his arrows, barely registering the narrow, whistling sound.

It took hours to clear the battlements surrounding the castle, but Peeta was determined that only he would strike the men down. His gang had never intentionally felled men before, and he wasn't about to force such a burden on his friends. Once the battlements were cleared, Peeta was met with silence from his band. He turned to them and discovered shadowy expressions of awe and pity directed at him. No one said a word. Death was nothing to rejoice over.

Dawn was approaching by the time they were able to make their second move. At the drawbridge, Haymitch offered himself as a diversion, sauntering up to the guards and picking a fight, stumbling around like he was drunk. Once he'd gotten their attention, and earned an unfortunate blow to the stomach, Finnick and Thresh jumped the guards from behind while Haymitch took their weapons. In the entanglement, Thresh took a slash to his thigh and Finnick to his shoulder. They bandaged the wounds as best they could and didn't complain, even though Peeta knew they had to be suffering. While being dragged into the gatehouse, the warriors thrashed about, their cries blotted by the cloak material wedged into their mouths.

Again, Peeta fought down that metallic taste as everyone hiked up the gatehouse stairwell, emerging onto the castle's surrounding wall. And again, Peeta apologized to the guards' lifeless faces. His band and Haymitch spread out and positioned themselves along the remaining stretch of the battlements.

At the area above the executioner's block, Peeta pointed across the way to an open tower stretching high above them into the sky. "What is that?" he asked Rue.

"The chapel's bell tower," she said.

When she told him that no one manned the bell at night, he pulled a length of rope from his pack and instructed her to steal into the tower, then wait for his arrow.

"But it's dark," she said. "How will you know when I'm there, or where to shoot? Or if I grabbed the arrow?"

"I'll see," he promised. And he did, and he trusted the girl to tie the slack into the most secure knot possible, enough to hold his weight for when he swung himself onto the platform.

The group took their places at intervals along the wall, pretending to patrol the castle. After spectators began to gather, the plan was for Gale and Thresh to descend into the courtyard and secure a spot near the block, near Katniss. Until then, they waited. Peeta sunk to his knees, shut his eyes, and lightly beat the tail of an arrow against his forehead, the threads of the feathers caressing his skin. His stomach rolled. When next he fired, he couldn't miss.

He remembered her in the lake, her scowl, her ecstasy, her tears. She'd clung to him as if he had the answers. Everything that had happened in the water had happened by accident. She'd tried to resist playing with him, the same way she'd tried to resist him by the fire pit on the night he finally took her. Except for that first attempt to jump on him and kiss him, not once had she ever thrown herself at Peeta or deliberately attempted to seduce him.

She hadn't been fixing to stab him in the heart. Her emotions had been unplanned but real. And he'd been a fool. He'd been lying to himself. She'd confessed, and all he'd seen was Delly, and all he'd felt was fear.

When the sun rose and the courtyard filled—peasants in the rear, aristocracy in the front—Peeta stood. They brought Katniss out. Swollen and purple and bloodied and stumbling. They'd beaten her. She kept her chin high, but Peeta saw what others couldn't. His eyes narrowed, peering across the block and landing her hands, shackled behind her back. They were shaking.

The sight made Peeta's chest contract, and he had to grip the stone wall and squeeze.

Seneca claimed a seat on the platform, evidently wanting to have an unhampered view of his fiancée's death. He sneered, validated. King Snow rose from his chair in a balcony overlooking the scene and called out Peeta's name, saying things he could not register. In response to His Majesty's speech, Katniss's eyes skipped across the crowd. Relief and devastation marred her features.

_She's looking for me._

She stepped onto the wooden block. They secured the noose around her neck. A single cry carved through the air, coming from the blond girl who must be Lady Everdeen's sister.

Peeta set his arrow, hating that rope, because that rope was the enemy, because that rope was also his lifeline. Puffing out gust of air, he lifted the bow, focused on the cord hanging from the scaffold. His palms moistened. His fingers quaked, and he had to pause to steady them. Then, for no reason at all, the king's voice finally reached Peeta, gonging loud and clear in his head. It stayed his hand. His eyes shifted between His Majesty and Katniss, understanding dawning on him. It would never end. After rescuing her, Snow would still find a way. He would always find a way. If Peeta didn't lose her now, he might later. Or after that. Or after that. His home would suffer, and so would he.

Gripping his bow, Peeta concentrated on his target.

"I love you, Katniss," he whispered, and then fired.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Katniss_

They'd let Seneca do it. When they brought me to the dungeon and chained me to the wall, the prince had been there, bent on shaping my last day to his liking. He'd enjoyed every moment of contact between us as he beat me. His knuckles cracking against my face. His boot ramming into my side. His words. "You gave yourself to that filthy little rebel, did you?"

With my hands and ankles bound by hard, cold iron, I'd had only my teeth. I'd bitten him in the cheek but regretted it afterward. Thankfully, I'd fallen unconscious at some point.

Now, he was here, not a few paces from me, as if to assure me in his own pathetic way that he planned on following me to the afterlife. Worse than that, they were making my sister and father watch. I'd had them promise they would close their eyes. I could not bear them taking this image back to The Seam. At least, Peeta hadn't come. It wrenched my heart to know that he cared so little, had buried himself in his anger. However, his absence was also a blessing. Whatever the king did to me now couldn't penetrate as much. I'd gone numb. My fingers shook, but the rest of me had gone numb.

The thick noose scratched my neck. The block beneath my feet rattled, signaling it was about to happen. I closed my eyes and saw his. And I followed the blue, letting it take me, wondering if I might meet Finnick's Annie wherever I was going, and that made me happy, because we could miss our men together.

"Peeta Mellark!" The king called out, his words echoing through the castle. "We're not fooled by your silence, boy. Show yourself to the world like a good and surrounded criminal. Your lovely friend would like to say goodbye—"

A thin, whistling sound that I recognized flew toward me. Maybe to kill me? Maybe Peeta had come to put me out of my misery himself? Maybe he'd thought to be generous? But no, it passed me, soared right by. Whizzing. Whizzing. Followed by a grunt from above.

I waited, and waited, and waited. I wondered if it was already over. Was death truly this merciful? I dared open my eyes, trailed the direction of the audience's froze gazes, and craned my head up. Snow had risen to his feet in the balcony, confusion and wonder twisting his features. He leaned forward and offered us all a glimpse of the arrow sticking out of his chest, before plummeting over the side of the balustrade and landing on the platform, rocking the surface.

Silence hit the courtyard like a slap to the face. The guards who'd been chosen to carry out my demise stood rooted to their spots, staring at the king as if they expected him to resurrect himself. It was as though we'd all witnessed a magic trick we failed to comprehend.

Then the mob erupted. I struggled to make sense of it, my vision blurry, unsure if I was dreaming or having a nightmare or something in between. People shrieked, the upper and lower classes flooding together to create a hysterical mass. Some rejoiced, shouting and chanting, making for the king's body as if to steal it. Others, mostly members of the peerage, fought them, pushing back to keep them from reaching His Majesty. The guards forgot me and jumped into the stampede. Peasants rammed into guards, wrestling them for their weapons. Livestock got loose, emitting their own traumatic noises.

_Prim. Papa._

I gazed wildly around but couldn't find them, fearing they'd gotten sucked into the rushing river of the fray. If I moved, I could lose my balance and fall off the block and hang nonetheless. That's when I noticed a number of bodies attempting to reach me, rich-looking faces aiming to finish the job, poor faces trying to stop them. Clenching my teeth, I struggled to break my own wrist and slip it through the shackles.

Another whistling sound—very similar to one of Peeta's arrows—and I landed on the platform, the rope falling around me like a snake.

But then Seneca yanked me to my feet, hissing into my face, "Let's see him try to find you."

Him?

The prince dragged me across to the opposite side of the platform, in the direction of the keep. Gasps alerted us, and we peered up to see a figure leap off the battlement and swoop through the air, supported by a cord and heading straight toward us. His shape grew larger and larger, his blond hair highlighted by the sun, a pack of arrows strapped across his back. He landed on the platform on all fours, eyes scanning the crowd before fixing on us. A moment of recognition. He launched himself across the dais.

Seneca wretched me away, evading the courtyard mania and hauling me toward the chapel. Already, we heard people hollering, "Find the prince." An outright rebellion had ensued. I was not about to stand aside and let the rest of Panem do the work. As Seneca hustled me down an arched hallway, I used all my weight to smash him into the nearest wall and trip him. We rolled around, my legs flailing to find purchase on any part of him I could damage, but he was too big, overtaking me and hammering my shoulders into the stone floor.

Peeta's voice burst down the corridor, roaring my name. My mouth split open to answer, but Seneca covered it. "Came back to be a rebel hero, did he? Decided saving his whore meant killing my father? Clever fellow. Let's see how clever he is when—" The prince's head jerked forward, his eyes rolled into his head, and he collapsed on top of me.

Rue popped into my line of vision, holding a club that was much bigger than her pixie frame. "I think he's asleep now." She dropped the club, brandishing my bow and arrows, which hung off her shoulder—she must have retrieved it from my room—and then wiggled a set of keys. I planted kisses all over her face as she began to unlock the restraints on my wrists.

"Katniss!"

I glanced up in time to see Peeta appear around the corner, barreling toward me, then getting cut off by one of the guards. Brutus. Despite Peeta's broad chest and strength, the other man towered over him, no doubt remembering the gang's ambush on his men in the forest and resenting the notorious thief for it. They collided in a tangle of fists. A sword lifted and swooped downward, and Peeta crumpled, his blood splattering the ground.

A silent scream worked its way up my throat but lodged itself there, choking me. I surged to my feet, and Rue tossed me my bow and arrow. Catching it, I strung my weapon, aware that I had no time to reach Peeta. But I would not lose him. I refused to lose him.

Brutus raised his sword again, and I aimed and shot the blade out of his hand, sending it clanging to the floor. He stumbled, giving Peeta the advantage as he plowed head-first into the man's middle, sending him flying backward. Punching Brutus into unconscious, Peeta rose, swaying, placing one hand on the wall and the other on the gash at his side. Lifting his head, he saw me, a look of surprise on his face as he registered the bow in my hand.

In the midst of the chaos, we stared. That face so sweet in my memory, those blue eyes that no disguise could possibly conceal, the sight of him familiar and yet new.

And then we sprinted toward each other, our bodies colliding at a halfway point and clinging. He crushed me to him, lifting me slightly off my feet. I inhaled that cinnamon and leaves smell, and I felt those arms, those arms I'd believed I would never touch again, and he freed me after I'd seen no way out, and I realized how unbreakable hope could be, and he was my hope. And a thousand moments surged through me.

"You're hurt," he panted into my neck.

"You are, too," I said, pulling back and drinking him in.

Peeta eyed my weapon and smiled weakly. "Not terrible."

If he wasn't injured, I would have laughed at his reference to our first hunting lesson. "I can take you."

He thumbed my cheek, leveling me with a tender expression. "You already have."

For an instant, we remained as we were, then we carried on. Along with Rue, we ran back into the battle and hopped up on the platform. Side-by-side, we strung our arrows and fired on the guards, helping the people of Panem win back their kingdom, then watching in the end as every peasant left standing turned to us. And offered a three-fingered salute.


	12. Chapter 12

**Thank you to Court81981 for giving me the idea for the tree house (a little RH movie inspiration)!**

* * *

_Katniss_

Joy. That was the most suitable word to describe the mood that swept through Panem. Over the prevailing weeks, the kingdom changed in ways not previously imagined. The villagers prospered, were fed and given ample shelter, clothing, firewood, and medicine.

In and around the palace, everything seemed lusher. A courtyard fountain was installed, swelling with water that the children swatted at for hours at a time. Dark draperies were exchanged in the castle for cheerful yellow ones.

Snow was gone. Seneca had been banished, most likely seeking refuge with one of his siblings. In spite of their existence, the consensus regarding the two elder sons was that they wouldn't try to reclaim the throne. Cato should have been crowned, but he'd been well known to despise his father and harbored no love for Panem itself. As for Marvel, his cowardice had never been a secret.

The original guards who'd managed to survive the rebellion had been retained. They'd been innudated recruiting droves of men, and it was quickly becoming apparent that they were still a dominable force, especially under the guidance of their new ruler.

As next in the line of succession, the Duke of Heavensbee was decreed the future monarch, an opportunistic figure whose generosity was motivated more by ego than earnestness, for he dearly loved being worshiped. Nevertheless, the man supported his people, was rumored to have a keen understanding of battle, and established a repertoire with the new army.

Heavensbee also treasured Peeta's counsel. Not only had he helped win the uprising, but he and the duke came from the same area of the country, with His Grace's lands bordering Peeta's old village. Heavensbee regularly held court with Peeta, interviewing him on matters of combat and weaponry. This factor also contributed to the conclusion that Snow's sons wouldn't risk their necks coming near Panem: Peeta Mellark and his gang, the kingdom's own legend, and now heroes, were assiting in the army's training.

Peeta.

Since the fall of Snow, we hadn't touched or been alone. I sensed how much he wanted to approach me, make himself available, but I turned away each time. If he were to come too close to me, I feared I would break.

Because I still hadn't recovered from my father's death.

During the rebellion, he'd fought to protect Prim from the stampede of citizens, accidentally pushing himself into the path of a soldier's sword. After that day, I had no time to think about myself, concentrating only on my sister, who needed me to hold her at night as she sobbed herself into exhaustion. I would allow no one else to comfort her. I would allow no one to breach the bubble we'd created. Not even Peeta.

It went on like this for weeks. The kingdom rejoicing, my family in mourning. My sister and I shutting ourselves off to merriment and spending our evenings in solitude and reminiscence, sometimes whispering, sometimes not speaking at all. The only event we attended was Heavensbee's coronation, which turned him into a king from one moment to the next. His Majesty insisted we stay in the palace as his guests until we'd mended. We didn't object. Neither of us wanted to see The Seam so soon after.

I believed Heavensbee also wanted me to show me off at a celebration he was planning, to mark the beginning of a new era in Panem. He'd chosen a date when the kingdom would be fully settled.

It was Rue who finally broke Prim from her despair. One evening, as I shuffled toward my chamber, I passed my sister's room and heard giggling outside the door. Rue was telling Prim a funny story involving the gamekeeper and a fleet of partridge. I listened to my sister's fragile laughter, and then left the girls alone.

It was the first night in ages I spent by myself. I didn't like it. I fell into a trance, staring at the hearth, staying that way until morning. In the great hall, Peeta caught my eye as I walked into breakfast, noting my laborious gait. He and his gang sat on one side of Heavensbee, for the king had also insisted they stay until the grand celebration. On the other side sat members of his court, as well as Prim and I.

"I'm sorry I didn't come to you last night," Prim said, sullen and guilty.

"I'm glad you didn't," I said. "I'm happy you've made a friend in Rue."

During the meal, I felt the weight of Peeta's gaze. After, as I raked my chair back to stand, he passed me, and I paused, as I so often did in proximity to him. I may not have given him leave to seek me out, but whenever he was close, I always stopped what I was doing.

His footsteps slowed when he reached me. "Leave your chamber unlocked tonight," he murmured and then left the hall.

That evening, I did as he requested, burying myself under a mountain of blankets, the fire from the hearth warming my toes. I'd been longing for him all this time but hadn't dared permit myself the comfort.

The sigh of the door opening and closing cut through the silence. I squeezed my pillow but kept my back to him, listening as he moved across the room, filling the space with that distinct rhythm of his. The mattress sunk under his weight, and he slid over until his chest hit my back, that scent of bark and cinnamon relaxing me. His breath beat against my neck. Without hesitation, Peeta slipped his arms around me, holding tight while I watched the light from the flames illuminate the golden hairs on his skin, my braided Seam bracelet secured around his wrist. My eyelids shut as his hands glided over me.

"You can let go now," he whispered.

So I did. The restraint of the past weeks, my silence, my own grief, unleashed from my stomach, spiraled up my neck, and poured from my mouth. My body shook, but Peeta held me. My sobs rung through the chamber, but Peeta held me.

I missed my father so much. But Peeta held me.

And then I slept and slept and slept, at one point rolling over and snuggling into his chest. When the sun rose, I was rested. And Peeta was gone. But he returned again late that evening, and in the dark, we revealed secrets.

Me: "I've thought about drowning myself, but I couldn't be like my mother and abandon Prim."

Him: "I was relieved when the typhus finally took my parents. I hated watching them deteriorate."

Me: "All the women in court talk about are fashion and scandals and you. Yesterday, I spilled that wine on my dress on purpose, just to get away from them."

Him: "I've been feeding my helpings of bread to Heavensbee's cat beneath the table."

Me: "Cats don't find me agreeable. Felines eat bread?"

Him: "They do if the loaves have the consistency of leather. And his cat is strange, so maybe it will like you."

We fell into a routine, glancing at one another briefly during the day, with me offering passing looks of gratitude, him responding with a kind expression. At night, he snuck into my room. One time, as we lay on our sides, facing each other, Peeta confessed that he missed the forest.

"Why did you choose to live there?" I asked.

"I guess I felt closer to my parents being in the woods. I met Gale there first, when he tried stealing a rabbit from my camp. I offered to share it with him, but he told me of a hungry family in the village. So we brought the rabbit to them, and that's when I realized they weren't the only peasants in need of food, money. I began to devise a plan on how to get those things to them."

"So you have Gale to thank," I said.

"I thank him every day, he just doesn't know it. Taking care of the cottagers was like taking care of my parents in a way I never could."

"Would they have approved of your methods?"

He laughed. "No."

I laughed, too.

I taught him how to whistle, but I struggled to keep a straight face because he was never on key. He taught me how to draw mockingbirds. I wasn't very good at it, yet his teasing distracted me from my self-consciousness. Gradually, I found myself looking forward to those nights for reasons beyond solace. Unlike the frenzied pace in which we'd grown together in the forest, this period was different.

Everything escalated one morning when I awoke and discovered Peeta still asleep, hair tousled, lashes long and fluttering, hand curled beneath his chin. I traced the outline of his jaw, and suddenly that hunger that overtook me in the lake, in the camp, in his bed, came rushing back. I began wanting things I hadn't thought about in so long. Wanting other parts of him to connect with other parts of me.

"I have another confession," I whispered, although I knew he couldn't hear me in his dream state. "When we were apart, I used think of you...and make myself feel good."

His lids snapped open, and I shrank back, my face suffusing with heat. He'd been awake.

He stared, observing my humiliation, blue eyes darkening for an instant, then glinting. "How good?"

I whacked him with my pillow, and he chuckled, and I hit him again. He grabbed his own pillow, and we lurched up onto our knees and surged into a battle, pounding at the other until we toppled over in hysterics, Peeta's body covering mine. The reality of his torso crushed against me produced a shift in atmosphere. I sucked up my giggles. So did he.

Peeta tried to pull away, but I clung to him instead.

He winced. "I won't hurt you."

"I know that," I said, confused. "How would you hurt me?"

He asked me what happened with Seneca, a subject that seemed to have been plaguing him, but that he wasn't sure I'd wanted to discuss until now. At first, I couldn't conceive of what he meant, but then I noted the repressed fury in his blue eyes. He thought Seneca had taken advantage of me in the cell. The prince hadn't, but that didn't dismiss the pain he'd caused with his fist.

"Seneca didn't touch me that way," I said.

"He still hurt you," he said, smoothing my hair, his features remorseful. "I wasn't there."

"Stop. You're here now."

I hoped he saw in my expression what I suddenly wanted from him. And how desperately.

"Peeta..."

Unconsciously, his hips dug between my thighs, grinding slightly. We both hissed, and I recalled the last time we'd been like this, only without clothes. He did it again. And again, his movements shallow, my leg hooking over his backside. He brushed his lips against my collarbone, then dragged them along my neck. Our hands drifted, breaths thickened with curiosity. Each time we came close to kissing, we pulled back, concentrated on a different form of contact, prolonging the moment.

A whimper curled from my mouth, but then someone knocked on the door. Peeta flew off me.

"Lady Everdeen. Up this instant, please!" Effie chimed.

Peeta hid in the closet, waiting as my chaperone and Rue fussed over me until I was presentable for breakfast. While they guided me out of the room, all I could think about was continuing my physical exploration of Peeta that night.

But he didn't return. Nor did he return the night after that. Like Prim, he'd suddenly ended his visits with me. The wanting drove me mad. Yet based on the lingering looks he gave me whenever we crossed paths, the feeling was mutual. I couldn't deny the thrill of our stolen glances.

As to the reason he'd ceased spending his evenings in my chamber, and why neither of us pursued one another, I had an idea. One I loathed to dwell on. Beyond the ardor, reluctance often seemed to contort his features. Now that the fervor of our reunion, the rebellion, and my subsequent grief had waned, it became easier to see things from a more composed perspective. And let original feelings settle in. Feelings like anger.

Was he still cross with me over my deceit? Perhaps our heated touches had reminded him of our last bout of intimacy and the confession that had followed. I longed to question him, but I was afraid of the answer.

kpkpkpkpkp

On the morning of Panem's celebration, I resumed archery practice. The fog spread like a yawn across the gardens. Although it would make shooting difficult, I welcomed the challenge. I enjoyed vanishing, preventing anyone from finding me. Standing in an open area of the lawn, where I'd set up my shooting range, I relocated the marker to a managable distance, took my position, and set my bow, sucking the mist into my lungs.

"Higher," a voice said, cracking at the end of the word.

My pulse drummed. Wheeling around, I playfully aimed my arrow at his chest. He wore his cloak over a tunic the same shade as his irises, his blond hair like a halo floating in the gray world.

_Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me._

"Higher, what?" I asked.

"Higher, _my lady_. You'll not hit your mark at that angle."

"As you can see, the bull's eye is no longer my target."

Peeta tossed me that boyish smile. He advanced until the arrow grazed his chest. He raised his own bow. "Care for a challenge?"

Over and over, we fired at the marker, our arrows landing abreast of each other, and I felt rather smug. Until his arrow knocked into mine in mid-air, setting it off course. I huffed, tried the same trick, and failed.

"Moving targets are a different breed of skill, my lady. You'll get there," he said.

I threw down my weapon. "Don't patronize me."

My outburst surprised us both.

"There's no cause to make me feel weak," I added, unable to help myself.

"I wasn't, but that isn't the point. Your tantrum has nothing to do with sport," he said, breaking down my features and making me feel positively transparent. "What's wrong, my lady?"

My temper rose further. "My name is Katniss."

It hurt that he'd become so formal.

He took my hand, causing my balance to falter. "Come with me, Katniss."

It was impossible to argue, no matter how much I still wanted to. We took his horse and rode through the east gate, the remnants of the fog protecting us. I wrapped my arms around his middle and nestled my face between his shoulder blades. Peeta took us into the woods, then tethered the horse and guided me to a place I recognized. Our hunting spot by the lake.

"Ready for another lesson?" he asked.

Just like that, I forgot to be vexed. We tracked down a doe. However, it was so skittish that Peeta had to coach me to be patient. Catching a moment in which the animal paused, I lined up my shot, but then another obstacle emerged. In the form of a buck, who appeared out of nowhere and proceeded to mount the female. My jaw came unhinged. I couldn't possibly fell a creature in the midst of mating.

Peeta was equally startled. We glanced at each other, and then began to laugh. My hand covered my mouth, but keeping it in was futile and unnecessary. Peeta was the first to stop, his grin dissolving and smothering my own giggles.

A heartbeat. A gust of wind.

We dropped our bows at the same time and grabbed one another, our mouths connecting hungrily. He walked me backward, pressing me into a tree, the impact dislodging a moan from my throat. My fingers climbed up his neck and threaded into his hair, urging him closer.

The kiss exploded. His arm slipped around my waist while his free hand cupped my head, securing me against him. That moist, smooth, male tongue probed my mouth, and nothing had ever felt better than the pillowy touch of his lips.

It was Peeta who pulled back first. Panting, he kissed me again, this time more slowly, drawing his tongue across my bottom lip. He inched away and said, "I've been wanting to do that for so long."

"Why haven't you?" I breathed. "Why did you stop coming to me?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to stop, but I also didn't want to ruin it by getting ahead of myself. We're from different classes. The people may love us now, but you know even better than I what it can be like."

I understood. I was a Baron's daughter. Peeta had been born into poverty and was a criminal-turned-hero. Despite the liberation, the people hadn't disregarded the social rules ground into them. I had to admit, I'd considered that, too.

"I thought it best to be patient and get a sense of how others might treat us," Peeta said, toying with my braid. "I also didn't want to reveal that we favored one another so soon after the rebellion—people might question when we'd had time to grow close. They would question your time in the forest."

And thus question my reputation.

He finished, "I wasn't even sure if you really wanted…what I could offer. I thought I would give you time to decide."

Relief washed over me. Here, I'd thought Peeta still resented me, when really he'd been thinking of my well-being, my free will. Giving the kingdom time so that it wouldn't be surprised by our connection.

"It was never about me," he said. "I didn't want anyone shunning you, making it hard for you to be accepted. You have enough to suffer from. Many of the nobility aren't happy with me for stealing from them for so long. If they accept me, it's only through Heavensbee's influence. Any thing more than that will take time. But I don't care about myself—"

"I don't care about me, either," I said. "I don't care about that."

But I did care about something else. Something I dared not say.

The concern melted from him. "May I show you one more thing?"

He took me a little further into the forest, at one point covering my eyes and guiding me the rest of the way. Then he lifted his palms from my face. "Look up."

I tipped my head back and gasped. Tucked into the tangle of branches was a large tree house, with its own window and an iron-banded closure to blot out the wind. It hovered above Peeta's old camp. The fire pit. The outdoor oven.

He said from behind, "This is also why I've been busy. Finnick, Gale, and Thresh helped. Johanna, too. And some of the villagers." He sounded self-conscious. "I didn't know if you were going back to The Seam. But I thought you'd like to have a place by the lake, in case…"

It was beautiful. I didn't know what to say.

"Do you want to see inside?"

I nodded. Instead of a ladder, Peeta secured us onto a rope pulley, holding onto me as we flew into the tree. It made me laugh.

The tree house spanned one vast room, the ceiling high enough to stand in. The smell of freshly cut wood filled the space. A rug of fur was the only item decorating the space.

I opened the latch on the window closure and pulled, letting in the breeze. My finger trailed along the sill, over the rough edges until reaching a smooth corner. Peeta had built this place without knowing where I wished to remain. Yet another of his gestures of hope.

I didn't want to return to The Seam, nor Panem's palace.

"This is home." I turned, stared at the boy I'd once wanted nothing to do with, but who knew where I belonged. "Ask me to stay."

Surprise crossed his face, then softened it. He thought about something for so long that I wondered if I'd asked for too much, too soon.

"If it pleases you," he said.

What I hadn't expected was for him to sink to his knees, take my hands, and gaze at me so openly. "Katniss, will you have me? Will you have this forest?" He swallowed. "Will you marry us?"

My palm flattened against the wall, the surface warmed by the rising sun, free of cracks and splinters. Fear gripped me, swiftly replaced by something kinder, something precious. Lacking the skill for words, even for a _yes_, I lowered myself to his side, once again his equal.

kpkpkpkpkp

Plump, fleshy fruit swelled from the cornucopias gracing the banquet tables in the great hall. Candelabras winked. Jewel-hued tapestries hung from the ceiling. Heavensbee had outdone himself with color for the celebration. I did my part by spiriting a yellow satin gown, the brightest garment I'd worn since my father's death. My mood was correspondingly jubilant.

After Peeta had finished kissing me dizzy in the tree house, we'd decided to wait to reveal ourselves to people, hoping to ease into the announcement. Only Prim and his gang knew so far. Still, it would be difficult keeping my distance from Peeta during the festivities. This fact became clear once he walked into the hall. The court followed Heavensbee's lead, cooing over him and his friends. Finnick enjoyed being a showpiece. Thresh tolerated the attention. Gale took pride in their respect, but Johanna glared at any woman who came near him.

Peeta received the most regard, from females in particular. Even worse was his own behavior—he complimented and joked. He exhibited that rare talent for earning people's esteem with few words. No longer did I see that hardened, wounded boy from the forest. The charming, good-natured soul he'd kept hidden began to leak through. Unbeknownst to him, his attitude sparked a disturbing feminine frenzy. Wicked thoughts smeared their faces as he moved about the room. But then his eyes found me, his gaze caressing the folds of my gown from hem to neckline, and my jealously faded.

Breaking from the throng, Peeta approached me, and I had a mind to flirt.

"A room doesn't exist until you're in it," he said quietly. "And the gown is fair, too."

"Flattery," I said.

"Honesty," he corrected.

"Which one do you think I prefer more?"

He grinned, threatening my ability to pay heed to our surroundings. My Seam bracelet peeked from beneath his sleeve. I imagined promising myself to him. Soon.

In the far corner, Prim modeled her ice blue dress with glee for Johanna, who hated having to wear a gown but couldn't help being infected by my sister's enthusiasm. I wondered what sorts of things they were talking about. Along with Rue, they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I couldn't say why, but the celebration felt too perfect. I hated myself for doubting and sought to squelch it fast.

"I wish I could take you somewhere," I whispered to Peeta, straightening my shoulders to give the impression of a regal conversation.

He reached behind me and plucked a pear from the cornucopia on the table. "And what would we do in this _somewhere_, Katniss?"

I fought the urge to swat at him. "Don't call me that here."

He bit into the pear, and I watched his mouth and throat work together. It could be so easy to get into trouble in public.

"There you are, you jolly bastard." Finnick sauntered up to us, his skin flush with as much drink as Sheriff Abernathy, who was already slurring in the corner.

We moved apart to admit our friend into our confidence.

"None of that." Finnick took the pear and finished it. "I'm not here for long. Heavensbee has some guests that have requested an audience with Peeta."

Groaning inconspicuously, Peeta excused himself, left me with one more smile, and then trailed Finnick. The king was engaged in buoyant conversation with a man...and a striking blond, around my age, dressed in a modest gown that identified her as one of the servants. Or perhaps a relation to a servant. Indeed, Peeta hadn't been able to sway His Majesty into inviting the villagers, for they'd been granted a party in the courtyard. But Peeta _had_ convinced Heavensbee to allow members of the staff to enjoy the indoor festivities as much as possible, including the king's favorite servants stationed throughout his additional estates.

Watching the girl twiddle her thumbs nervously, possessiveness got the better of me. I moseyed toward where the king stood, planting myself near enough to shadow the conversation as Peeta and Finnick reached them.

"Ah, Mellark, my boy," Heavensbee thundered. "My humble guests would like an introduction. I do so love indulging my underlings, you know."

For a monarch, the older man needed a lesson in finesse.

Peeta turned at the same time the blond girl rose from a shaky curtsy. Her face tilted up and collided with his gaze. She smiled, radiant, like she'd just been introduced to the most magnificent sunrise.

"Peeta," she said.

I stiffened, marveling that she would address him so informally in a room full of people. Off to the side, one of the cooks brought out a roast pig and began sharpening his knife, the noise grating through my ears. Another person's cutlery clattered against their plate.

Peeta stood speechless. The girl forced a laugh. "Will you not take my hand? Have you forgotten me already?"

Absently, he took her fingers but continued to hold them mid-air. And I watched the muscles in his body tense, watched his profile go slack, watched him thumb the side of his jaw, a private habit that I'd grown fluent in, signaling shock.

"Delly," he whispered.


	13. Chapter 13

**Wow, thank you so much commenting, following, and favoriting! And much gratitude to Dustwriter!**

**Musical inspiration for Everlark's wedding: "Scottish Wedding Music" by James Horner (instrumental).**

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_Katniss_

When I was four years old, I chased butterflies into a wheat field and got lost. The world was reduced to a directionless canvas of sky so blue it blinded me, and towering stalks of gold scratching in the wind. The hiss, the whirr of that wheat, convinced me no other senses existed anymore, masked the possibility of escape. My life narrowed to that single sound.

I was alone. I believed I always would be.

That's how I felt at this moment in the great hall, looking on as the boy I loved stared at another. The minstrel music vanished, the clinking of silverware disappeared, the laughter faded. All I heard was my own rapid breathing, droning like the wheat field. I felt myself sinking into it. Lost. Alone.

Even so, I despised myself for being dramatic.

I felt Finnick's hand on my shoulder. A gesture of support. He must have seen me watching and come to my side, and I knew it was his hand because he had beautiful nails, pink and polished as seashells. I'd never told him this. I still couldn't say why. Maybe I didn't want to remind him of the ocean.

Less than a minute must have gone by, yet in that time the stars had winked and my tolerance had plummeted along with my heart. And somewhere far from here a couple was getting married, an old man was dying, and a girl was experiencing her first kiss, maybe in a lake. Immense changes could occur so fast. This occasion was no different.

True to form, Heavensbee broke the silence, splendidly clueless as to how much the floor had just slanted beneath everyone's feet. "Now, now, Mellark. No time to lose your knack for words. I'll have you know, this party isn't over yet."

Delly chuckled, a reaction clearly forged for His Majesty's benefit. Her blue-eyed gaze roved over Peeta, surveying him from head to toe, perhaps divining whether he'd changed.

I wouldn't know.

"It's a relief to know our hero has retained his poetic side," she teased, proof of her and Peeta's matched ability to charm.

Finally Peeta dropped her hand, his expression numbed. He hadn't graced her with a bow, but this did nothing to alleviate me. If anything his behavior was more harrowing, because his aloofness meant she still affected him.

"My poetic side comes out only when it suits the mood," he said. "Otherwise, I'm busy shooting things."

Delly faltered. Heavensbee frowned. I was going to be ill very soon.

"You know my husband, Mr. Crafton, of course." Delly presented a man who'd been hovering beside her. Handsome in a stately way, with the height to compliment.

The king's words burst into the space. "Crafton is my head footman back at Heavensbee Manor. I say, I wouldn't have forgiven myself if I hadn't invited my most prized staff. And he cuts a fine figure. No need to be ashamed of his person here." Having said his part, Heavensbee excused himself, evidently bored with the dialogue and moving on to more worthy discussions amongst the nobles.

"My Delly has spoken highly of you, Mr. Mellark." Crafton inclined his head, his voice as warm as soup, simmering with confidence. He'd won the girl, and he knew it. Peeta did not intimidate him. "I'm sorry we never had the chance to meet earlier."

"Believe me, that makes two of us," Peeta responded, dripping enough sarcasm to dilute every jug of wine in the palace.

The man grinned, which didn't surprise me. Footmen were generally known for their coolness and confidence. He paid Peeta's comment no mind and placed his palm on Delly's back.

I felt the pressure of Finnick's own hand guiding me away. I was in danger of being discovered eavesdropping.

"Peet's in shock," Finnick said. "And he hasn't seen her in a long time. He needs a moment."

I nodded. It wasn't as though Peeta could introduce me as his betrothed. No one knew of us besides those we loved. Plus, if Delly's husband could tolerate her reunion with Peeta, so could I.

Whether or not Johanna could abide the girl was debatable. I saw her near a candle-lit alcove, squirming to get out of Gale's grasp, no doubt fixing to pummel Delly. In my heart, I agreed with Johanna, but I resolved not to lower myself to that level. It would do me no good. All the same, the unladylike temptation festered in my blood.

Finnick gave me a rueful smile. "Would you like to make him jealous? I'm good at that."

The best I could do was muster a grin. "There's no need."

"My thoughts exactly. You have more important occupations to fulfill. There is a certain weapon that you meant to present to Peet tonight, am I correct?" he asked.

I remembered the new bow and arrow pack I'd commissioned, a gift Heavensbee and I had planned to bestow on Peeta during this party as a token of gratitude for his contributions to the people of Panem. I could have sent someone to retrieve it, but I wanted to do it myself, to be the only one handling this special task.

I rushed out of the great hall and up to my chamber to fetch it. It was beautiful, with the lightest of handles and an engraving along the curve. Soft plums fanned from the arrows' tips. I took my time admiring the contours and polish. He would love it.

Racing down the spiraling stairs, excitement trilled through me. More so when I passed the gallery, somewhat of a distance from the great hall, and found him there, staring out a window into the darkness. He seemed tired, out of place in this castle. I wondered if he dreamed of the forest.

This was the perfect time to give him his gift. In private. We could replay the event in the hall afterward, for everyone else to see. I stepped forward, but then skipped behind a stone column, my body tingling. Delly approached him from behind, looking wistful and having entered from a second door on the other side of the gallery. She had the nerve to impose herself on him while her husband socialized in another room.

I gripped the bow's neck, choking it.

"You always did like windows," she said fondly.

Peeta's shoulders tightened when he realized she was there, but he didn't look at her. "Some things are easier to see through than others."

Delly wavered. She folded her hands in front of her. "I deserve that."

"Don't make me list what you deserve."

He didn't see it, but I did. She reached up to touch his hair but then stopped herself. "I heard about you, all the things you've done. I was proud of it." When he didn't respond, she sighed. "Peeta, I never meant to hurt you. When Heavensbee invited us here, I wanted so much to make amends." Her voice broke at the end. Cracked like Peeta's always did, but on her it didn't sound natural. The defect in her intonation had to do with the emotions she tried to restrain.

She sidestepped him, cocked her head, studied his profile. "We grew up together. You can't hide from me. I know that face you're making."

Grasping the extent of their history together, the childhood experiences they must share, the things she knew and I didn't...well, I'd never felt so inferior. Or so infuriated. I smoothed over my braid. Peeta loved touching my braid.

"Say it," she urged.

He whipped around, slamming the window closure shut. "You didn't have to use me to get to him!"

"I wasn't. Not at first!"

"Oh, no? Is that meant to pacify me?"

They were screaming at each other now.

"It's meant to be the truth!" Delly argued.

"Save your truths for your husband, if that's at all possible."

It looked as if she'd inhaled a year's worth of air. "My father fell ill. I had four siblings to look after."

"And you didn't think I could help with that?"

"You were a baker's son. Crafton was my best friend _and_ the head footman for a duke. I had to marry him. My family would be looked after. Medicine for my father. An opportunity for my brothers to become servants to a peer. You know I couldn't forfeit that. But I wanted you first. I did!"

He shook his head, furious. "Why did you lie to me then? Why did you say it was an act? And why the hell are you telling me this now?"

"I wanted you to move on. If you knew how I felt, I feared you wouldn't. That would have tormented me. I'm telling you this because I owe it to you. It wasn't fair to lie."

Stung, he twisted away.

Delly pressed her palm to his cheek, and he let her. _He let her_. She turned his head so that his eyes locked onto hers. "Peeta..."

From my spot behind the column, I saw his hand ball into a fist.

"Please forgive me," she whispered.

His fist relaxed. His jaw loosened. He thought about something and began to raise his hand.

He and Delly were from the same place, with the same background, of the same class. But she was married. And that was my cheek she dared fondle. And those were my blue eyes. And that was _my_ Peeta.

Stomach twisting, I strung the bow, aimed, and fired. The arrow ripped through the narrow space between them and stabbed the window closure. Barely missing Delly's decidedly long nose. She jumped back with a yelp.

Peeta's head jerked in my direction, his eyes widening in surprise.

"How dare you." Delly marched toward me. "Who are you? How dare you interrupt..." she trailed off once she stood at arm's reach, inventorying the luxury of my gown, its embellishments, color, and fabric. Classifying me as nobility.

Peeta stood rooted by the window, evidently bowled over by seeing the two women in his life in the same room and at a standoff.

"My-my lady," Delly said more gingerly, then gestured at him. "Do you not know who this is? Who you shot at?"

"I wasn't aiming at him," I countered, unable to recognize the harshness in my voice.

She gaped. "I don't think you're aware of the consequences of your actions."

Within an instant, I strapped another arrow to my bow and pointed. "I don't think _you're_ aware of the consequences of standing this close to me."

"Dammit, stop!" Peeta was at my side, renting through his astonishment and pushing past Delly. My bow lowered once he got in the way. For the first time since I'd known him, I saw fear looking back at me. Fear and desperation from the boy who showed none of these things to the world.

He blocked Delly from getting between us, but I didn't have the feeling he was protecting her from me. Indeed, it seemed he was trying to shut her out of our quarrel, not wanting her to invade our space, paying her no mind. Alas, I was too frazzled and confused to be sure.

For all I knew, he'd been about to envelope her before I interrupted. In truth, I felt certain he'd been about to do precisely that.

"Please," he began. "Hear me—"

I shoved the arrow pack into his chest, so hard and so lopsidedly, that they scattered to the ground. I threw the bow down as well, then pivoted and ran, ignoring the sound of my name. For once, he couldn't catch me.

kpkpkpkpkp

Reaching the highest turret and out of breath, I collapsed. I drew my knees to my chest, turning myself into a rock, an unbreakable thing. I rolled back and forth, head bent. The wind whipped my braid around. The air smelled cold. Ahead of me loomed a dark horizon of hills and valleys, the grainy outline of Peeta's forest. The glow of torches around the castle provided the only light. Them and the full moon.

I'd bathed under such a moon. With Peeta, in the water. He'd kissed me for the first time.

In the gallery, he'd been about to kiss Delly.

I unleashed, knowing my cries would earn me a headache but not caring. He'd been about to forgive her, so much easier than it had been to forgive me. She'd forgotten about her husband. Peeta had forgotten about me. I was a dunce. I'd been naive. It would always be her.

The current took my sobs and swept them out into the vista. No one would hear me. No one would find me here.

"Katniss?"

Except him.

I shot to my feet, wiping my face with my arm. His silhouette stood a few feet from me, and I caught the shape of the bow and arrow pack I'd thrown to the floor, now hanging off his shoulder.

"How did you know where I was?" I demanded.

"I'll always find you," he said.

Even in the darkness, night couldn't dull his blond hair. I hated him for it.

"You're not perfect," I said. "No matter how golden you remain, no matter how many people praise and follow you. You're not perfect."

He came closer, stopping in front of me, his expression pleading, tender. "I never believed I was perfect. You think my friends would follow me if I were unblemished? Perfection is not why people love each other."

_Do you love her?_

It had always been on my mind. My most imagined reason why he'd ended his nights with me in my chamber, and even before that. The fear over whether I was his second choice. We were engaged, yet I wondered.

Peeta set the weapon on the ground. "Katniss, let me explain."

I shook out the folds of my gown, trying to regain my dignity. "There's no need. I saw everything."

"No, you didn't."

"I wish to be alone."

"No, you don't."

I moved to step around him, but he stopped me. One hand on my shoulder, the other on my cheek. Involuntarily, my eyes closed at the contact. His touch would forever do this.

"Oh, my love, your passion leads you to act far too hastily sometimes," he said.

I reared back and flung my arm out. "What was I supposed to believe?"

"I was talking about the arrow, not your assumptions."

Embarrassment caused me to look away. I'd behaved like a child. There was no cause to remind me.

"Your assumptions were understandable, though incorrect as well. Nothing was going to happen," he said softly.

"Only because my arrow came between you!"

"No. I wasn't going to accept her. I was about to _push her away._"

"Why? You want her."

Peeta looked upset that I would draw this conclusion. He cupped my face, forcing me to look at him. "When she asked me to forgive her, I was grateful. I felt release. That's the expression you saw. I wanted only to move her aside and find you. And then you almost cut off her nose, and I saw you standing there, fragile and enraged, a little girl and a warrior forged into one person. I'd never seen anything more beautiful." He thumbed my tears, shook his head affectionately. "I don't want Delly. I have no designs on her. Katniss, I'm promising myself to you. Please, don't doubt me."

Even though his words lifted my heart, I planted my feet on the ground, withdrew from his arms, and migrated to the edge of the turret. I'd been right. I was a fool, but not because of the reasons I'd thought. I'd flown into a fit and nearly severed a body part from Delly Cartwright's head. Because I'd assumed the worst, without trusting him, and then without giving him a chance to refute my accusations. I'd acted recklessly. Had been doing thus ever since I met Peeta Mellark.

I wagered he could say the same about me. We had that effect on each other.

"I missed on purpose," I muttered, as if that sufficed to atone for such a barbaric transgression.

Peeta chuckled. I rolled my eyes, schooling myself not to laugh. As it was, I deserved to be placed in the stocks.

He advanced on me, the both of us continuing this game of pull and retreat. "Katniss, pray tell. How does a man know which woman he wants?" Seeing me hedge, he added, "Don't think. Answer."

"He wants the woman he can say anything to."

Peeta pretended to mull this over. "You."

I couldn't help it. I bit my lip to hide my smile. "He wants the woman who makes him happy. The one he thinks about when she's not near."

"You."

"The woman who challenges him and comforts him most."

"You."

I believed him. I did. Yet a greedy part of me wanted him to work harder.

"Come here," he murmured.

My finger glided over the ledge, wondering if he could see this with that keen eyesight of his. I didn't respond, braced myself as nerves popped inside me and released a flood of warmth.

"Fine," he said, closing the distance.

"Peeta, I—"

He cut me off with his mouth. His supple, searing mouth, and I knitted myself to him, kissing back. The breeze beat at our clothes, beat the misgivings out of me. His lips brought me back to the lake, his tent, where we belonged together, and it was real.

He spoke against my mouth. "I'm so in love in with you."

And I tasted hope.

kpkpkpkpkp

_Peeta_

He tasted her. Katniss's tongue, trembling and ravenous, lapped against his, and it was like tasting wildflowers and embers from a fire. He wanted to pull her down and make love to her right there, at the castle's highest point. To make her scream his name. To brand it within her throat. Inside her. Where he belonged.

Peeta groaned when she pressed his hands to her bodice, urging him to tug at the lacing until he freed her breasts and they swelled in his hands. His fingers traced their shape, the softness that tapered into hard peaks. She sighed, her head falling back as he took one in his mouth, devouring her at a leisurely pace, then switching to the other side, his lips drowsily combing over her skin, then returning to kiss her once more.

"I want you—" he began.

"I want you, too."

"I don't want to stop."

"Neither do I...but..." Katniss dropped her head against his chest. "It's freezing."

He burst out laughing. The chill calmed his body down. Reluctantly, he refastened her bodice and then retrieved the bow and arrow. "Was this for me?"

"It was supposed to be a gift," she said.

Peeta revolved the bow in the beam of moonlight and ran his finger along the letters embedded on the curve: _Legend._ He grinned and thanked her. Because the weapon was magnificent, and because he knew she'd chosen the engraving.

"I meant to present it to you tonight, but then..."

But then she saw him with Delly. Peeta's jaw clenched. He hated seeing Katniss hurt, especially when he was the cause. Understanding what he needed to do, he took her hand and wordlessly led her down the turret stairwell, across the courtyard, into the keep, and into the great hall. Back to the sights and sounds of celebration.

Katniss stayed quiet until she realized they were heading toward Heavensbee and Delly.

"Peeta, what are you...we can't interrupt," Katniss said. "She's speaking with His Majesty. He might have requested her."

"So much the better," Peeta said.

He caught the tail end of the discussion, which explained why Delly had even acquired a private audience with the king. "I have no idea where Peeta is, sire. I saw him earlier, but he disappeared and ran after a disagreeable maiden. She had the nerve to..." Delly noticed them coming, a look of repentance on her face, then bafflement as her gaze landed on his hand laced with Katniss's.

Heavensbee balked, probably more from the speed at which Peeta invaded their conversation than the impertinence of it. The action was enough to steal the entire hall's attention.

"Oh, fie," the king pouted, gesturing at the bow. "You've already been given your prize. Lady Everdeen, I have a mind to scold you. We meant to do that in a grand fashion. Otherwise, what's the point?"

"I've received a better prize. The giver herself. You see, I recently asked Lady Everdeen an important question." Peeta gently tugged Katniss in front of him. "And she said yes."

Silence prevailed over the hall. In the background, his gang pelted him with smirks from various corners of the room. Johanna in particular.

Shock flickered over Delly's features, a twinge of sadness that admittedly cut at Peeta because she truly had wanted him once, and in spite of everything he wished her no ill. He did not announce this to pain her. He did this to show that he'd recovered, and she no longer needed to harbor guilt. Or any other hopes.

Social protocol dictated that His Majesty be the first to speak, but his mouth kept flapping emptily. So Delly boldly took the initiative. She wrestled up a smile that seemed controlled by invisible strings, turning her into a marionette. "I'm happy for you."

"Well, I say, I say, I say." Heavensbee clapped, catapulting into laughter. Like the twist of a lock, it unfastened the guests from their stupor and they applauded along with him. "It's an irregular union, but I'm not allergic to gossip. The hoopla alone is worth the trouble. We'll have visitors from all over the country. You are lucky you're luminaries at the moment. Hence, I give my blessing."

Once the king finished yammering about a ceremony Peeta had no intention of letting him control, His Majesty sauntered off to further rely his thoughts on the matter to the rest of the aristocracy. Delly loitered, not knowing what to do with herself.

Peeta squeezed Katniss's hand and whispered, "Will you give us a moment?"

Her frown created two adorable creases between her brows, reminding him there were so many things about her that he'd yet to discover. But she was stubborn like him. So he mouthed, "I love you."

And she smiled. He laughed inwardly when she retreated to Johanna's side of the room, as though an unspoken alliance had been formed between them in the past hour.

Delly's quivering voice tore him from his thoughts. "Why her?"

That's how it was, he thought. That was Delly. Asking another man a personal question while her husband, Crafton, talked Haymitch's ear off in the corner. She'd always been indiscreet. Giddy and grumpy to an artless degree. He'd once been amused by that. Part of him still was, but not with the same affection.

When he first saw her in the great hall, he'd plummeted headfirst back into that cave, that tangle of memories. He thought the past year in the forest had been a dream, and it had scared him. Immediately, he'd wanted to return to the present and all the people in it. And so anger had become the vehicle.

Peeta wasn't angry anymore.

He still hadn't answered her question. Why Katniss? Because she was a girl on fire, because she hated losing yet enjoying learning, because she straddled the lines between grace and fierceness, naivety and cunning, vulnerability and resolve. Because once, when Thresh asked her to, she sang...and had stolen Peeta's most valuable possession. His heart.

She was a better thief than he.

"I said before that I know your face," Delly uttered. "You don't have to answer. I see it."

If he wounded her in some small way, he was sorry. Because she was still the girl who sewed him a stuffed lion for his seventh birthday, the girl who used to draw with him as children, the girl who gave him his first fleeting moments of ardor. Delly embodied his past, but that was all.

She offered Peeta her hand, the both of them sharing one last thing together, a single private thought.

_Goodbye._

Then he let go, and watched her return to Crafton. And Peeta found himself across the room, his fingers reaching for the girl with the braid. The only girl.

_Hello._

Heavensbee insisted on a betrothal dance. As Gale commandeered a musician's lute and began to play, Peeta followed Katniss to the center of the hall, smiling when she glanced at him over her shoulder and winked, aware that he didn't know the steps. They circled one another carefully, right arms raised, palms up but not touching, and she whispered when it was time to switch arms and change direction.

They barely spared the other occupants of the room a second glance.

kpkpkpkpkp

Instead of white, she wore a green dress. It was her favorite color, and this was a forest. They promised themselves to each other in secret, with only their friends present. Heavensbee could plan his spectacle of a wedding later. Right now, they only needed the woods and the lake.

Peeta kissed Katniss before the priest said it was time. Or it might have been Katniss who didn't wait. Peeta actually couldn't tell. They laughed through the kiss.

Thresh cried. Haymitch swore he'd only have one drink but poured a second glass because Effie was there. Finnick pushed Gale into the water, then Johanna pushed Finnick, then Katniss pushed Johanna. Rue and Prim danced.

Peeta watched it all.

Later, back at the old camp, he left Katniss at the fire pit, where she spent a private moment saying goodbye to her sister. Prim was returning to The Seam with Haymitch, Effie, and Rue, now Prim's lady's maid and irreplaceable friend. It made Katniss feel better that Rue would keep Prim company. Haymitch was given leave to oversee the Everdeen house.

Hearing of his heroics, The Seam had welcomed Gale back, but it wasn't the woods. Thresh and Finnick had been offered a place in the palace's guard, but it also wasn't the woods. They and Johanna decided to keep to the new camp their band had built. All of them, along with Peeta, would serve as defense liaisons to Heavensbee.

Peeta was also ordained as an ambassador for the villagers, taking matters of daily concern to the king's court.

As the night wore on, Peeta grew impatient, observing Katniss in her fetching green gown, a wreath of flowers crowning her loose hair. Her skirt clung to her waist. She licked a drop of wine from her lips. Dawn was breaking by the time everyone disappeared in a line of horses. The instant they did, Peeta threw Katniss over his shoulder and sprinted toward the tree house.

Propping her back onto her feet, he pulled her against him and tugged on the rope pulley, kissing her on their way up into the branches. Above the ground, they wasted no time. She walked backward, arm outstretched, tugging on his fingers. Peeta read her expression.

She wanted something specific. He asked her to tell him.

"Remove your clothes," she said.

Nothing could have enticed him more. He moved slowly, pulling his tunic above his head and tossing it to the floor, watching as her breathing altered. Then he unfastened his pants. Unknotting the cords at his waistband produced a soft grazing sound that filled the space. He prolonged the act as much as possible. He could see her getting frustrated, which made him grin. So he let the breeches drop, kicking them away. Then he waited.

Her gaze drifted over him. "Sit on the pallet."

Peeta liked this side of her. Of them.

He did as she requested, and she deftly removed her gown, revealing the pieces of herself that he'd held in his memory. A sigh misted from his throat when she straddled him.

"Can I have you?" she asked, reminding him of their first time, his own words.

"Yes."

"Say it."

He _really _liked this side of her.

"Take me, Katniss," he said.

They moaned as she sank onto him, landing fully in his lap and sheathing him inside her. Her body jolted once, perhaps from the position, or the sudden connection. He couldn't truly tell how it affected her until she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, and he felt her squeezing her lids shut. Now, he recognized the gesture. She'd done the same thing in the lake, after he'd touched her but just before she began to cry.

He reciprocated the hug, gathering her to him. "Katniss, are you alright?"

She remained silent. A moment ago, she'd been blunt about what she wanted.

"Look at me," he said.

She raised her head. Unlike the last time they were together, he knew her better now. He pressed a finger to her chin, registering what she couldn't say, but what they both felt. He said it for her. "I've missed this, too."

Katniss smiled. They continued. Eyes locking, she rocked back and forth while he clutched her backside and guided her movements.

"Tell me how it feels," she panted.

"So...so good."

"And _that_?" She began circling her hips.

Peeta's flung his head back and issued guttural cries that hit the ceiling. He was completely at the mercy of her body. This went on and on, making him delirious, his fingers wandering, discovering the spots she liked. Sensing they needed more, his hands climbed up her back and hooked over her shoulders, securing her in place as he increased their rhythm. He beat his hips against hers, thrusting up and causing her thighs to split wider.

"Oh God, Peeta," she whimpered.

At the spot where they were joined, he burst, and she followed, and they were loud, and it lasted a long time.

Afterward, they clasped each other, catching their breath, holding on, holding. Then letting go and falling onto the pallet, where he drew the blanket over them and did more holding. Katniss lay on her stomach and turned her head to face him, watching as he traced an arrow up her spine.

Her gaze drifted lower. "I love your hipbones," she said out of nowhere.

"I love your everything."

"I'll allow that."

In a quick move, he yanked her on top of him and flipped them over, his body filling hers once more. She swiped a lock of hair from his forehead, and Peeta stared at the simple gold band that he'd slipped onto her finger, glinting in the early morning light. So unlike the gaudy jewel he'd tried to rob from her ages ago. And unlike that last ring, this one suited her perfectly.

So perfect he might have to steal it away, just so he could place it on her finger one more time.


	14. Chapter 14

**Hello again! So months after completing this story, a joyful idea for an epilogue unexpectedly popped into my head :) Thank you to my betas, DustWriter and Chelzie. Hope you enjoy this!**

**Happy note: I've updated chapters 6 & 8 with expansions of the steamy lake and tent scenes ;) Go back and have a look. Would love to know what you think!**

**Musical inspiration: "Take You Away" by Angus & Julia Stone.**

* * *

_Epilogue  
_

_Katniss_

His footprints were easy to track. I'd become proficient at identifying his pace, the agility and quickness of him, the manner in which the marks twisted to indicate a sudden pivot or silent leap. I knew those prints. They belonged here in this forest, as much a part of the woods as the roots of an Alder. They led a path to his heartbeat.

I tipped my head and examined the outline of his boots in the soil. Not too deep, slightly smudged. He'd been running. Playing.

Ferns brushed my shoulders and made whispering noises as I toed past them. The white rays of the early-morning sun combed through the leaves overhead, flashing brighter than a gilded frame. The gabled roofs of mushrooms jutted from the ground. Wildflowers bloomed, yellow and yellower, the bud-like eyes blinking at the first signs of summer. The splendor of greens and browns. The promise of strawberry patches—I recalled being fed their sweetness hours after giving my body, for the first time, to a boy.

I shook myself, amazed that my cheeks could flare so, even after all this time.

Suddenly, I recognized the melodic humming that rode the wind—it came from me. I loved this place, for the forest had become my home. Every particular of this haven built up the walls of my life. My fortress. My canopy. My peace.

Numerous sounds brewed through the wild. It was a good morning for a hunt.

Someone else had thought so, too. Because I'd woken up alone.

I tried not to be cross that I hadn't been invited to come along. Somewhere in this wilderness, I felt him darting through the trees, weaving around cracked trunks and brambles, his eyes reflecting determination, sharp as they scanned the tightly-packed landscape, plush with majestic creatures all attuned to the new day. A sight I refused to miss. I longed to witness him enraptured and full of energy.

A nut dropped from above and skipped over my arrow pack, landing at my heel. I bent to pick it up, break the shell, and chew. I gathered a few more and tucked them into the pockets of my hose. Far from the noble world, I could dress like a man here, reserving the finery of a lady—velvet skirts, ermine-lined cloaks, godforsaken tassels—strictly for visits into the village or the palace.

I kept moving. He was close. In a minute, I could touch him, see his smile, hear his laugh…there. Right there.

Beyond a hedge, I spotted blond hair, a pale forehead, and irises in an unmistakable hue. Aware of the smile that split my face, I lowered myself quietly to the ground, set my bow on my lap, and peeked through the leaves. He bent forward, ear cocked as he listened for something. His boyish profile scanned the woods, the cliff of his nose naturally tipped upward, sunlight warming the slit in his chin.

Those eyes searched. They anticipated.

They widened, sensing a presence behind him—but it wasn't me.

My gaze narrowed, finally grasping a troubling fact: He was by himself.

By himself.

_By himself!_

How? Why? He wasn't supposed to be alone. Ever. Only now did I realize I'd been tracking a single set of footprints instead of two. There should have been two!

He pitched forward, aiming to run. I gripped my bow as I caught sight of the dark-hooded figure pursuing him, whom he must have heard coming. But before I could muster a decent battle cry and launch myself at the unknown assailant, he leapt through the undergrowth with unmatched speed.

The sort of speed that I knew from only one person.

I halted.

A distinctive giggle—childish and only in its eighth year—bubbled from my blue-eyed boy as his small body dashed ahead. And just like that, I knew.

The larger figure caught my boy and scooped him up like a miniature sack of flour. As the figure did so, the hood slipped from his head to reveal a second thicket of blond hair. I sagged in relief, watching as Peeta twirled our son into the air.

Our boy. Unharmed. And not, in fact, by himself.

The pair of them sang with laughter, a tuneless choir graced with Peeta's cracking voice and Robin's high-pitched squeals. They rubbed their noses together, as they usually did when indulging in something wicked.

"Does Mama truly not know we're gone?" Robin asked.

Peeta pressed his forehead against Robin's. "It's our secret."

Their words trampled the adoration in my heart. I'd woken up to silence instead of the routine hubbub that Robin made as his voice jolted the rafters of our house most mornings, loud enough to rouse a snoring dragon: "I am king—kinger than that king! I am warrior! Rooooarrrr! Mamapapawakeupwakeupwakeupi'mhungry! I require bread!"

Despite evidence that Robin was the very image of Peeta, his behavior proved he was also _my_ son. Not because he liked to make noise—I was hardly a noisy person, though I had become more vocal since he began walking and learned the word, "Noooo."

It was an incurable side effect. I became a mother. Hence, I became louder.

Still, that was not the manner in which he resembled me. It was his chronic demands and hearty appetite that branded him as my own.

Alas, this morning it had been quiet. And when I saw that Peeta's bow was gone, and that our son's bed was empty, I'd known Peeta had taken Robin on his first archery lesson. Without me.

And now, while they'd been playing a game of chase, I nearly expired thinking Robin was alone and in danger. My momentary scare, further fueled by the knowledge that I'd been left out on such a reserved occasion, made me grind my boot into the soil. I wanted to poke my husband's blue eyes out!

"Now, the first thing you must know…"

And so I would when next we were alone.

"…need to be patient."

I would make Peeta pay until he renewed his allegiance to me.

"…do not make a sound."

I would reject his lips and industrious fingers.

"…take care to place your hands thus."

I would line up and make target practice of the cheese rolls he baked whenever I was vexed with him. I would—

"...pretend it's an extension of your arm."

I'd been preoccupied, glowering at a prickly pine cone, when those words reached me. I recalled them from the day Peeta first taught me to hunt.

I glanced up. Peeta was kneeling behind Robin, securing our son between his thighs and helping him adjust a child-sized bow. Blast. My ire threatened to wilt at their feet. No one disarmed me as they did.

"Like this, Papa?" Robin asked.

"Like that."

The arrows and quiver I'd given Peeta all those years ago, the night we announced our engagement in front of His Majesty, swung from my husband's shoulder. The past decade had favored his physique, still broad beneath his tunic, from arms to torso to the hands concealed within his supple leather gloves. His aim still unrivaled for a man of seven-and-twenty. Still considered a legend.

And still he favored my gift above all the newer bows King Plutarch provided him. Peeta used it whenever he went hunting, in my company or not.

"As long as I have it, I have you with me," he once said.

I dug my teeth into my bottom lip. I wasn't entirely forgotten on this father-son venture, but that did not mean I would show mercy so easily.

As I expected, it took less than five breaths for Robin's wide-eyed enthusiasm to reshape itself and solidify into impatience. Sweet as cherries was our Robin Mellark. Yet I had somehow bequeathed my son the Everdeen scowl.

"Where are the squirrels?"

"We must wait a few moments, and if we don't see anything, we move along until we do."

"But where—"

"Patience."

"I can see far. To the end of the world. I can see bugs crawling all the way over there."

Peeta ruffled Robin's hair affectionately. I frowned. For some reason, that statement unnerved me. Our boy liked to exaggerate, but...in this, he sounded sincere.

"Are they coming now?" Robin whispered.

"They'll come when you cease squirming."

"I am squirming because you hold me too tight."

"I'm holding you tight because I know you wish to run away again. One chase was enough."

"That was a game. This is hunting. I'm very good at it."

"That's a confident declaration." Peeta raised an eyebrow. "Considering you've never done it."

"I'm with you, Papa. I have skill through association."

Peeta and I gaped at him. The king had been giving our son an earful again. Heavensbee had taken it upon himself to adore our son, though sometimes to our disadvantage. Skill through _what_?

We would have to request an audience with His Majesty. He could not insist on supplying Robin with such foolhardy notions. If it wasn't his influence we had to fret over, it was Finnick's, or Gale's, or Johanna's, or Sheriff Abernathy's. As well-intentioned as they all were, sometimes they forgot how seriously Robin took everything.

Peeta argued, "You learn skill from here—" he thumbed Robin's forehead. "And here." He thumbed our son's heart. "And skill requires patience."

Patience, truly. Yet did Peeta not realize to whom he was talking? Did he not know this wasn't the best spot for squirrels? Nor the ideal hour? I surpassed him at catching smaller animals. We both knew this. Why hadn't he asked me to join them?

Robin nodded and lifted his bow. It would come to naught.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

"Where are they, where are they, where are they?"

I jumped from my hiding spot. "You tarry in the wrong place!"

Their heads snapped toward me. Guilty flushes colored their cheeks at being caught.

Peeta confided to Robin, "I fear we're in trouble."

"These aren't the right trees," I grunted, wagging one of my arrows in the air. "North. The northern lip of the forest. That's where we'll find scores of furry creatures."

"Mama," Robin lectured. "You're not supposed to be here. This is a secret."

I glared at Peeta, who shrugged and appraised me from head to toe. "Spying, my lady?"

"Advising."

"Spying?"

"Of course not," I lied. "I was—"

"Spying."

Very well. They could suffer this squirrel-less hunt without my assistance.

I whirled away when I heard Peeta murmur something and then count out loud. Their dramatic voices reached out to me in verse.

_Oh, comely maid,_

_Oh, lady fair!_

_All hail thy braid,_

_That crowns your hair!_

I pursed my lips.

_No matter what you see when you turn, do not melt._

Slowly, I twisted back around. Peeta had Robin in his arms, their temples pressed together as they stared at me. An unfair set of square jaws, brilliant eyes, and puppy faces pouted, begging my forgiveness.

Harder. I pursed my lips harder.

Peeta mouthed, _We love you_.

I glanced away. He knew what I was truly upset about.

I would not admit that being omitted from their excursion had wounded me. I sought a practical argument. "My presence could have been useful."

Sighing, Peeta set Robin down and crossed his arms. We had this same debate every summer.

"Squirrels are tricky!" I clipped.

"_Deer_ are tricky."

"Deer are harder to miss. With less places to hide."

"Squirrels aren't territorial, my lady. They're everywhere."

Robin's head pivoted between us.

I struggled to remain dignified, noble, calm. "You underestimate—"

Peeta squinted and stuck a finger in his ear. "And if there were any squirrels here, they're long gone now."

"I am not yelling!"

"Katniss—"

"Do not embellish my name with that honeyed tone of yours. Take up your bow this instant. We'll see who triumphs, for I am positively—"

"Mama!" Robin shrieked.

Peeta's blue eyes flitted over my shoulder. His pupils dilated. They flashed.

Fear.

Protectiveness.

It happened in a blink. He swiped up his bow and fired. The arrow zipped past my cheek and hit something behind me. A troop of mockingjays bolted from an Elm and scattered into the air, a dark cloud splintering to pieces.

I spun around, expecting to find a lifeless mound of fur and claws and teeth. I saw nothing. What had Robin noticed? What had Peeta struck?

My husband and I rushed to where the arrow impaled the tree's arm, pinning a tracker jacker to its surface, the tip of the weapon engorged in its center. Goodness. The insects were rare but dangerous. Deadly to some. They moved impossibly fast and thus were equally impossible to see mid-air, much less strike with an arrow. Unless Peeta was the one firing at them.

Hands shaking, he yanked me against him and cradled my head in his chest. I hardly paid attention because…there wasn't just one arrow stabbing the tracker jacker. There were two, the points of both merely a hair's breadth apart. A direct shot at a swiftly-moving target, from a considerable distance. An insignificant-looking creature, but a very significant kill. A life-saving moment only an unparalleled archer could master. One with improbable eyesight.

Two arrows. A larger one. A smaller one.

Peeta's mouth fell open as though seeing himself from the outside for the first time. We stared at one another. Then back at Robin.

Our son lowered his bow, eyes glistening, plump with confusion at what he'd just done. He blinked. He shuffled his feet. His chest rose and fell in shallow little pants. He looked to us for guidance.

My hand clamped over my mouth. It was the wrong thing to do.

He started wailing.

Peeta and I dropped our bows and rushed over to him. We knelt by his side, cooing over him as he rubbed his eyes and cried, frightened by the speed at which everything happened.

"I'm sorry, P-p-papa!" he lamented between gulps, his voice splitting like a dried leaf. "Mama, I'm sor-sorry. I d-d-didn't mean to shoot at you!"

"I'm fine," I whispered. "Nothing's amiss."

"You were trying to protect her, Robin," Peeta said, his expression frayed, a tapestry of concern and awe. "Hush. It's alright."

"But I-I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean t-to k-k-kill the bug. I didn't mean it!"

Peeta ran his hand through our boy's hair and tried to shush him—to no avail. The hysteria had fully taken hold of Robin because he was like me.

And, it appeared, even more like Peeta.

kpkpkpkpkp

I peeked through the window and watched them settle by the lake, just beyond our tree house. I had the advantage of knowing what Peeta was saying to our son without having to guess. This was a moment I could not participate in. It was between them. Because Peeta knew, he _knew_ what his son felt. He knew the disquiet of discovering at a young age that he was different.

Gifted but different.

Peeta balanced on his knees, his cloak flapping like a sail as he spoke to Robin in measured but soft tones, explaining what his gift meant, that it didn't make him strange or cruel. That he was special.

The breeze created ripples in the water, stirring its placid surface and irritating the Mallards. Peeta removed his leather glove, wiggled Robin's nose, and gestured to the bobbing ducks.

Robin giggled. I smiled.

He tucked himself into Peeta's chest, the way I often did when I needed the solace of my husband's embrace. I turned away, giving them privacy. I busied myself in the kitchen, stoking the fire in the hearth to warm a pot of morning oats. The stone niche surrounding it kept the flames secure.

Early in its timeline, His Majesty had insisted upon hiring an army of men to extend the modest dwelling Peeta had originally built for us, adding support beams around the massive hulk of the tree. As well as extra rooms, a spiral staircase that wound like a vine around the trunk and led up to the front door, a second and third level, glass windows, a lookout terrace, an underground larder, a pen for our goat, and a stable for our two horses.

For King Plutarch could not have his most prized archer living in "squalor amongst the animal kingdom."

"I won't have it. I won't, I won't, I won't," Heavensbee had declared, his voice booming down the neck of his banquet table as he rammed an empty goblet against the surface.

He wouldn't have it. Though he reserved rooms for us at court, it would appear unseemly for him to disregard the living conditions of his treasured marksman. Anything less would have made the king look bad. The man was in love with his generosity.

So as a wedding gift, Heavensbee knighted Peeta and presented us with a rolled parchment plan to "dignify" the tree house.

"A vertical estate in the sky," he'd puffed. "Befitting your stations. I will be seen as an architectural innovator. Ahhh, I can see by your open mouths, Sir Peeta and Lady Mellark, that my elegant foresight has left you speechless with gratitude."

The design was ostentatious and impossible to imagine in the woods, but we could not refuse a gift from King Plutarch. To prevent him from mutilating our home, Peeta convinced the king to scale down his efforts to something we became enchanted over.

On the grounds of practicality, we appeased His Majesty by employing a handful of servants who came twice a week to assist us. Aside from that, Peeta preferred to cook. I could brush and braid my hair on my own, and I'd found that I rather enjoyed domestic work, being able to look after myself and my kin.

We kept our life simple, though not without luxury. Heavy green draperies. Fur mats. Feather pillows. Peeta's sketches. Robin's toys scattered in various corners.

The hearth blazed. I laid out plates of cheese, meat, and berries to accompany our bread and porridge—unrefined, but a preference of Peeta's from his days as an outlaw. I rubbed my hands and checked the pot, in the middle of stirring when I heard his footsteps. Peeta emerged in the doorway, carrying with him a sleeping Robin. Our son loved to wake up before the birds, and since it had been a taxing morning, it didn't surprise me to see him unconscious prior to breakfast.

The boy's head was snuggled into Peeta's neck, cheeks covered in dried tears, fist pressed against his mouth, legs wrapped around Peeta's broad chest. I didn't think I would ever grow accustomed to such a sight. I watched my husband move through the kitchen and disappear up the stairs that led to Robin's room.

Moments later, he returned, tossing his cloak on a chair and drawing my back against his frame. He circled his arms around me as I inhaled the sweet scents of leather and cinnamon.

We stared at the fire.

"He'll sleep soundly," he said.

"Until midday," I finished.

I felt guilty and unsettled as something perched at the edge of a table. To be sure, I did not have to gaze upon Peeta's features to know they were drawn. We marveled that Robin had inherited Peeta's rare gift of sight, a truth we failed to notice in all of eight years, which blunted the edges of our confidence. This was the sort of skill that could turn Robin into military gem.

I did not care for that idea. Neither did Peeta.

"Have you ever seen him accomplish...such a feat?" I asked.

"When have I ever kept a secret from you, Katniss?"

"How did we miss the signs?"

"Don't do that," Peeta said. "Don't punish yourself."

"It shocked him. It scared him."

Our expressions—shaken, confounded—hadn't helped. Robin had done something unusual by hitting that tracker jacker. He'd seen the proof of it on our faces. Our reactions had undone him.

"He'll learn to manage it," Peeta said. "As I did. We'll teach him."

I thought about that. "He needs a compass."

"He knows how to read the sun's position. He knows this arena of trees."

"I do not care. He still needs a compass. He needs to know where north is." I hiked up my nose. "Where the squirrels are."

He nipped my ear, playfully reprimanding me for that statement. "As he grows, he can decide for himself what he wants to do about his gift. No one will force him to be an archer because he'll have his own mind, he'll have your strength of will."

And Peeta's cunning. Together, we would nurture Robin's gift so that it safeguarded rather than burdened him. Peeta's words restored my spirit, reminding me that survival ran through the veins of our compact family.

"I'm glad you were there," he murmured.

"I almost wasn't," I rebuked. "Why did you not take me with you?"

"Katniss, you know how you are with him. You become nervous and critical, and it makes _him_ nervous and...shall we say, cranky. I wonder from where that tendency comes."

I tried to pull away, but he shackled me against him.

"I needed him to be focused. It's how my father taught me to use a bow. We were alone. It had naught to do with not wanting you there. I always want you there, but today wasn't a day to _need_ you there. Until...well, we wouldn't have found out if you hadn't spied on us."

"I'll say it again: I wasn't spying, Peeta."

"Think as you will, my lady. About your endeavors as well as the squirrels."

I could not help the laughter that escaped me as I realized the silliness of it all. Peeta Mellark, the natural leader, the one to whom men looked up, the one whom His Majesty relied upon. And he'd been standing there, patiently arguing with me about squirrels.

Peeta joked, "If Robin gets that upset over catching a tracker jacker, maybe he's not ready to hunt fluffy animals for supper."

My laughter deepened. Peeta nestled his lips into the curve of my neck, nibbling over the column of skin, causing my pulse to quicken. My head fell back onto his shoulder. The fire crackled and spread an orange light over us.

He whispered, "Do you remember when we made him?"

Sighing, I reached behind me and weaved my fingers through his hair, my stomach fluttering from the memory. We'd been quarreling on that midsummer's day. To calm myself, I threw off my clothes and dove into the lake.

The lake. The place where I first discovered the shock of his embrace, the molten results of what happened when lips collided and the world became so very singular. When I first learned that simple touches were not always so simple.

In his fury, Peeta came after me, storming across the dirt while ripping his tunic over his head. I'd known his intentions. The ferocity of his expression had stirred me, unwound me from my petty tantrum, but I was stubborn.

He caught me before I turned my back on him. He pinned me flush against our favorite rock surface. He wrapped my legs around him.

It was beautifully harsh. The slick nakedness of his body, his thrusts digging my hips into the rock, the untamed shouts that flourished from our mouths and echoed through the woods, the artistry of Peeta's face lost in ecstasy and the knowledge that I was responsible.

We made Robin. In that lake, he became a grain of sand inside me, sealed with a breathless kiss.

The memory strung my thighs as tight as rope cords. My sudden desire—it was always sudden—directed my actions. I dissolved against Peeta, welcoming his mouth as he sucked the tender flesh of my neck, his hands slipping beneath my shirt to palm my breasts.

He groaned, "It never fades."

No, it never has. Our desire.

Since Robin, it had grown less frequent, the blissful but bottomless job of raising him commanding our time and energy. But with the decrease in quantity came a potent silver lining during the private moments we managed to steal: a starvation that unleashed upon us and violent climaxes that left us dazed.

I turned and threaded my arms around Peeta, whose eyes were now fogged. "Is Robin truly asleep?"

"Don't ask questions you know the answer to."

"Perhaps you should check again, just to be certain—"

"Stop toying with me," he growled. "I don't have the tolerance."

Barely finished with his sentence, he seized the back of my head and stole my breath. His hot lips latched onto mine, tongue dominating the inside of my mouth, ebbing and sweeping back in. The need spiraled between my legs as I clung to him.

The still-life of our breakfast remained untouched on the table. I wasn't hungry. I was thirsty. I tore my mouth away and kissed a wet trail down his throat, lifting his tunic to span the contours of his chest.

I landed on my knees.

Peeta made a wounded noise as my fingers eased down at the waistband of his hose, revealing him to me. We gazed at each other. The unspoken rule passed between us.

_He will not wake up. Nevertheless, we must be careful. We must be quiet. _

Under the guidance of my puckered mouth, Peeta dissolved. His spine arched, his freckled nose wrinkled, his eyelids flickered.

"I..." he mumbled. "I..."

"You," I fawned.

My lips drew him deep, each tug producing a hushed but needy response. A vignette of moments followed. His fingers, my hair...his waist, my nails...his restrained sobs...his head thrown back...open-mouthed anguish...so, so good...my husband...the tension in him...twitching...once...twice...three times.

His taste. My moan.

I released him only when he slumped against the table. I kissed the slice of bone that outlined his hips, my favorite part of him. I spoke against his abdomen. "Have I exhausted you?"

"It would not matter," he said, dragging me to my feet. "We're not finished yet."

We stumbled into our bedroom and shut the door, fumbling with one another's clothes. Peeta shoved me onto the mattress the second he removed the final garment. My thighs welcomed him. He landed between them.

Grinning, he covered my mouth as he buried himself into the narrow cove of my body, locking our hips together. I bucked against him, a muffled _Ohhhh_ grinding out into his palm. This would not be easy. I concluded as much as he slipped out completely. Then thrust in again.

_Do._

And again.

_Not._

And again.

_Stop._

And again. All the while, he covered my moans with his hand. Until it was too much for him.

"Speak," he gasped.

"I love you."

"And I love you, dammit, but that's not what I meant. Sentiment only makes me harder," he panted. "I need help. Please."

"So close, then?"

"So very close."

Defiant, I lifted my hips and rolled them against his, joyfully inducing his pain. My hands clamped onto his backside. He could not resist whenever I did that.

He bit his lip, grunted, and then chuckled breathlessly. "Cruel person. Stop that."

"Never."

"Heartless."

His passionate gaze set me to humming. My body arched as he hit a particularly tight spot, the sensation bolting through me. "Oh...oh...oh, I hope the oats don't burn."

"That's good," he said. "Oats. Tell me about them."

"They're not supposed to cook for this long. They'll dry up."

"Did you add barley?"

"I did. And millets and rye."

"Yes. I love rye," he moaned.

"Oh, Peeta, this is...I can't..."

It felt too good. He felt too impossibly good. I could do nothing more than babble.

"Very well," he said wickedly. "You don't wish for it to last. You fail to give me your cooperation. Therefore..."

He hitched my right leg over his shoulder and lashed into me, whipping my body into the pillows. I lodged my fist into my mouth to stifle the sounds.

His blue eyes turned black as night. "Do you pine for me, Katniss?"

I nodded, helpless, rendered speechless by the force of him.

He withdrew again.

And slipped in again.

"My lady," he said. "My wife. My love."

Pleasure coiled at the spot that joined us, pushed me to the brink, and then sprung free. I bit into the muscles of his shoulder, crying out repeatedly, even more so when he reached his own peak. He swore into the blanket, shivered, and collapsed.

He sighed. He kissed me.

Chin. Nose. Temple. Lips.

We fought for breath. I ran my fingers over the dip in his lower back. I felt him smile into my neck.

I blinked. "Did you give Robin his milk?"

Our son always needed a cup at his bedside, even during a brief rest.

Peeta lifted his head. His blond hair was a knotted mess. Had I done that?

We studied one another, contemplated, and then burst into chuckles. Still flushed from making love, and already our minds had skipped away to a place outside of this room.

We rolled around, clinging and kissing, relishing the quiet, the sun beaming through the window and quilting us in its gauzy light. After, Peeta pulled on his hose and left to check on Robin. And the oats.

As I draped my tunic over my head, he returned. Our son hadn't stirred yet, but he had his milk now.

Peeta cocooned me into his body, his breathing evening out, on the cusp of dreams, where I followed him...

The sound of the door squeaking open woke me. I fought a grin, kept my eyes closed, and listened to the patter of feet crossing the room. They stopped at Peeta's side.

"Papa," Robin whispered. "Are you awake? Papa."

The landscape of our bed bounced, hills of blankets shifted as my husband rolled over, sighing happily. "Well, well," he murmured. "Behold. A knight who has misplaced his armor."

I heard the shy smile in our son's words. "Never fear. I keep my armor in a treasure chest."

"Have you gotten into the bread?" Peeta asked with a chuckle.

"Mmm...no."

"Then what are the crumbs all over your mouth?"

"They're not important...they're...I..."

The sudden hitch in our boy's voice made my heart twist. So often I wanted to tuck him safely in my pocket, where nothing could harm him. He was our sky and earth.

"Come here," Peeta said softly.

The bed rocked as Robin climbed in, bringing with him the childish aromas of apple cores and curiosity. His bare feet curled over the cliffs of my knees. Peeta urged him to whisper.

"What ails you, Robin?"

"Is there something wrong with me?"

My chin quivered. How quickly he could reduce me to a shower of tears. He had no idea the effect he could have on me. On Peeta.

My husband countered, "Is there something wrong with _me_?"

"No."

"Then I wager we're both fine."

"I'm like you?"

"Every bit."

"Will I be a legend, too?"

"You can be anything you want. But having a title, or being a legend, isn't important. Kindness, generosity, helping others, being a loyal friend. Doing so because it's right, without expecting a reward. That's what matters. It makes you strong."

"I can do those things," Robin confided.

"I know you can."

"We saved Mama today. Is she well? It didn't sting her?"

"I promise she's very well. She's forever safe with us. It's what we do. We protect each other."

Robin paused, the room blossoming with the sound of his tiny exhales. "You and Mama will teach me?"

"Every day."

"I should maybe learn how to catch a squirrel first."

The mattress shook with gentle laughter. My feelings climbed to new heights, because my husband's words were firm as a shield. Exactly what Robin and I needed to survive. To keep hope.

"Do you trust me?" Peeta asked.

"Always," Robin said.

A minute later, he fell asleep again. I opened my eyes and stared into a pair of blue ones. Peeta flashed his fetching grin, unsurprised that I'd been eavesdropping. He kissed his three middle fingers and placed them on my lips, which I kissed back.

Our son snored between us. There was so much to do, but I was glad Peeta had doused the fire in the kitchen hearth. Breakfast could wait. It was summer. The days were long.

There was no reason to hurry.


End file.
